The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 274: Road to Revival

"Matt Busby brought a whole new approach to the team and showed incredible ability to revive the team and bring the Red Devils back to the top of the league and become a true giant in England.

--Inscription

Matt Busby's story with the Red Devils began after the end of World War II in 1945.

In the 20s, the Second World War was in full swing. The German fascist army brutally bombed the British mainland, causing huge losses to England. As a result, the English football leagues at all levels were suspended indefinitely, and the Red Devils' Old Trafford Stadium was bombed many times and almost completely destroyed by the war.

Even though the war was extremely cruel, people still persisted in their love for football. Children would still play football on the ruined streets of Manchester, football matches would be held in military camps during the war, and some troops would even use football as a training program.

The World War finally ended in 1945, and the English League was restarted in full swing. Old Trafford was almost completely destroyed, and the Red Devils Club could only raise funds to renovate the stadium while temporarily renting other stadiums for games.

The Red Devils club has appointed a new head coach. The board unexpectedly appointed a newcomer, a player who started out of Manchester City's youth training and played for Liverpool, a newcomer in the coaching world, he is Matt Busby.

Matt Busby was born on May 1909, 5 in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Scotland. He loved football since childhood and made his debut in Manchester City's youth training camp. In November 26, Busby became a main player for Manchester City and made outstanding contributions to the Blue Moon's FA Cup championship, becoming an indispensable midfielder for Manchester City. In 1929, Busby joined Liverpool for £11 and became Liverpool's main player and captain. Busby effectively improved the strength of Liverpool, and his positive and enterprising attitude and upright and kind character also had great prestige in the team.

Busby joined the army during World War II, and his career ended there. But even in the army, Busby could not suppress his love for football, and took the initiative to coach the temporary football team of the army, leading the team to participate in various competitions. At the end of the war, Busby received an offer from Liverpool to serve as a member of the coaching staff, but the Red Devils management's move caught him off guard. Inviting star players who had played for two mortal enemies to serve as their own head coach requires not only courage, but also enough imagination.

On February 1945, 2, Busby officially took over as head coach of the Red Devils.

Busby was a genius, and his performance showed that there are people in the world who are born with knowledge. Busby was born with magical charm, very good at communicating with people, able to quickly eliminate the sense of unfamiliarity and win the favor of others without difficulty. Busby first won the trust of the club owner, and soon gathered the locker room, uniting the players closely and cohesively.

Busby was completely different from other coaches. He seemed to have no need for training or preparation, and he immediately shined brightly. He seemed to have an innate understanding of the secrets of competitive football, and an innate understanding of how to lead a team and how to win.

Busby adopted a brand new approach to lead the team and was innovative in both signings and youth training. He not only inspired the team’s vitality and improved its strength, but also brought confidence to this long-declined former giant, putting the team on the road to revival. ”

Busby didn't care about the players' bodies at all, no matter whether they were short or not. He valued the skills, the players' understanding of football, and the degree of integration between the player and the ball. He emphasized offense, fast and three-dimensional offense. This coaching philosophy is extraordinary even today, not to mention that it was in the 40s.

Busby personally went to the field to guide the players in practice, and developed various new training methods and training programs from scratch, which were unique in the entire English coaching community. You have to know that it was football in 1945. The training of British professional football was very boring, focusing on physical fitness and confrontation, emphasizing speed and strength. Most coaches believed that players' skills should be improved in their youth. When they reach the adult team, they no longer need to learn skills, but only need to train physical fitness and speed. They even rarely pay attention to the development of the team's formation and changes in position. At that time, English football training started with various confrontations. There was no individual project training, no group training. In a word, it was as simple as possible.

In those days, the club had few training programs, and often used group games instead of tactical training. There was no coach to teach how to position properly, how to run to support, how to assist and intercept, how to cut in... Quite a few coaches even believed that players should not be allowed to touch the ball during midweek training, "so that they will be more hungry for the ball in the weekend games."

Busby scoffed at this. He attached great importance to details and project training. He first emphasized the importance of the venue. To this end, he vigorously transformed the training base, so that all training venues were covered with real grass. Ball training projects were all carried out on the grass to improve the players' adaptability and affinity to the grass. He was the first coach in English history to regard ball training as the most important project, and insisted on making ball training the core training project. Busby added many means and methods to change the previous simple methods. He brought a series of complex projects such as sprinting and dribbling, sprinting to catch the ball and get rid of it, shooting after multiple changes of direction, repeated changes of direction, fake changes of direction at different rhythms, etc. In addition, Busby emphasized team projects very much, adding a series of new training contents such as team positioning, group passing, empty running and passing, and multi-person coordination, adding a variety of training subjects with game nature, especially emphasizing the combination of people and balls and group cooperation, emphasizing team awareness and active running without the ball.

Busby established complete training standards and the players' training level improved rapidly.

Busby was innovative in tactics, far ahead of his peers. In the backward English football environment, he insisted on combining technology with speed, teamwork with physical strength, and focused on the use of space and time. He was good at using various formations, the first to introduce the concept of 4 defenders, and would constantly try to change the formation. Busby was the first to use a magnetic board to explain tactics, emphasizing the importance of formation balance. He began to try a formation with 6 defenders on defense, and reformed the original league's tactics of 2 defenders with 4 midfielders and 4 forwards. When defending, the formation was changed to 4 midfielders tightly collected between 2 central defenders, forming a dense 6-defender system. This system later developed the free man tactics on the European continent, and it was the forerunner of the 4-defender tactics in England.

Busby attached great importance to the players' ball skills, such as ball control, dribbling, feints, and getting rid of... This is simply an outlier in English football. He emphasized that technology is the foundation and consciousness is the core, and refuted the theory that the body is the first. Busby also pioneered the trend of predicting and analyzing opponents before the game. Before each game, he would analyze the opponent in detail, actively collect information, watch the game as early as possible, deploy tactics against the opponent, and prepare for the game to perfection, instead of being like other head coaches who ignored everything and focused on themselves, playing whatever they wanted, and responding to changes with the same attitude. Busby, who loves playing football, often goes on the field to demonstrate how to play football, how to run, and how to cooperate. Demonstrate how to tear open the opponent's defense line through sharp passes, how to use straight passes, oblique passes, and passes behind the back to drive counter-running, demonstrate the role of these passes, and improve the players' running and offensive awareness.

Busby had no coaching experience, but he was born with this knowledge. Busby did not intend to fight alone, he formed a large coaching team and found Murphy to be his assistant. Murphy was unique in tactical training, which improved the overall quality of the Red Devils to an excellent level, and made people understand the importance of assistant coaches for the first time. Busby and Murphy were later praised as one of the best combinations in football.

Busby also set up a special scouting department, expanded beyond Manchester to bring in players, and used all means to attract talent.

The Red Devils encountered many difficulties when the league started, the most critical of which was the lack of sufficient funds. The club needed to repair the stadium, leaving Busby with little money to bring in players. Not only that, the Red Devils also lacked the appeal to outstanding players. Busby was determined to use his eloquence and charm to attract talents to join.

Busby's efforts paid off quickly, and he succeeded in recruiting players one after another, and the skeleton of the new team was quickly established. Under him were strong defenders Johnny Carey, John Aston and Allenby Chilton, and forwards Charlie Mitton, Jack Rowley and Stan Pearson, who made great contributions to the team's eventual success.

Busby's Red Devils began to show competitiveness. In the 1946-1947 season, when the First Division was restarted for the first time after World War II, the Red Devils finished second in the league after Liverpool, which was the best ranking the club had achieved in nearly 36 years.

Busby was determined to further tap into talent. He was obsessed with the introduction and training of young players, and established a huge youth training system for this purpose. Busby set up a multi-level scout system, increased contact with the sports departments of various school communities in England, and established an efficient headhunting team in order to catch good seedlings as soon as possible. Busby expanded the scope of selection to outside the British Isles and actively recruited players who took the initiative to sign up. The Red Devils quickly became a famous youth training center in the whole of England, and a large number of young players came to join. Busby asked the coaching staff to implement the physical analysis and research of young players, strengthen the guidance of technology and consciousness, and let young players grow rapidly.

Busby made youth training an important foundation of the team, which paid off greatly. In the 1946-47 season, the youth team that Busby had invested so much effort in won the championship in the reserve league, marking the beginning of the harvest period of youth training.

In the 1947-1948 season, Busby led the newly formed Red Devils to win the FA Cup, beating Blackpool 4-2. In the following two seasons, the Red Devils won the league runner-up in consecutive seasons, just one step away from the championship.

The Red Devils youth team has set off a "youth storm" in England. The Red Devils youth team is invincible in the reserve team league, and has won the FA Youth Cup for five consecutive seasons.

In the 1951-1952 season, Busby continued to lead the team to the league championship. He boldly used Brown Chiffler and Roger Byrne, two young men under 20 years old, in the starting lineup, and they did not lose out even against opponents of Liverpool's level. This season, Busby's Red Devils were extremely strong and stable. They moved forward courageously and won the league championship in one fell swoop!

Busby helped the Red Devils fans realize their dreams. After struggling for more than 40 years since Mangnall, the Red Devils once again won the First Division championship!

The Red Devils have experienced so many years of struggle, so many years of pain, encountered so many difficulties, and continued to look forward to so many years of hope, and now they can finally be rewarded with the glory of the championship.

This moment was so exciting that countless Red Devils fans were moved to tears, overjoyed and unable to sleep at night!

It took Busby more than five years of quiet time to lead the Red Devils to the league championship throne, which brought Busby great reputation.

The Red Devils fans had waited for 41 years for the championship, a championship that even the Red Devils fans dared not even dream of, but Busby achieved it! Busby won the love of the Red Devils fans and the respect of the English football world. His Red Devils were reborn, full of vigor and sharpness, and returned to the ranks of the top clubs with a heroic attitude that stood out from the crowd.