Forget the wages (and the employers), forget the private life (and the intrusions), forget the fact that management in football is something akin to being in charge of a bonfire of burning tenners - actually you do need to understand how difficult it actually is to make a difference in a sport which lives on being the 'national' sport of so many counties outside of the USA. Leadership the Sven Way has a comment from a past England Manager that because Sven is not English, he may have an advantage in that Sven does not carry the jingoistic baggage as would be if he were English.

This is a team sport where, Brazil on odd occasions apart, its the ability of a team manager that makes the success happen. At any level, building a team and an approach from an assortment of egos and abilities is a task that would perplex the best Harvard Scholar. If this book is to become a 'set text' in some area or another, it needs to deal with the fact that even at age 5, some footballers (through their parents and media management) have egos the size of Everest, and true abilities which again are foothill like through to mountainous and cLoud penetrating in stature.

Its a business which has no idea of real value and for years and years, English Football has relied on rivalry for its inspiration and it has been dominated by those who have led by their stature to motivate and bully in equal measure. Come the organisation of the Premiership and all the money it brought to the party, and 'foreigners' became de riguer, firstly as players and then as management.

You will probably not have even considered any past attempts to analyse the old styles of football management - and whatever comes through in autobiographies of the greats. Now golf is embracing everything it can to keep up the stream of improvement from the past 5-10 years, a book which will 'turn your team into winners' has to be considered. Some say that the team effect for the US Ryder Cup is negligible, but patriotism played a huge part in the singles at Brookline, and Tony Jacklin making his teams feel great were just two of many recent happenings in team golf which have made that particular competition third behind the Olympics and the World Cup in an even measure of status.

Golf has a lot of committee based management in its basic infrastructure. At top player level, the media is full of comment from the greats of the 60s and 70 about their lack of a 'team' supporting them and comparing their lives with the teams of support that the present Tour players have. If you read Leadership the Sven Way, you will find out more about empowerment which is something that committees don't do. You will find out about leadership and you can compare, for yourself, whether, the players with a big payroll are doing as well as those who have a caddie and not much more.

This is a book about the business of being a manager and it makes use of lots of comment from the more traditional sector of business books, then brings in the Sven factor. Being a true leader is a very lonely experience and when you are not a modern day politician, with 100s of lackeys pretending to be your friend, or being paid to do so, or you have another set of 100s of media and ex players all having their say, you can easily surmise that Sven could be a very lonely man.

What Sven has achieved is the respect of the players and as such, he has done his job as best the conditions will allow him. If you gain one thing from Sven's experiences, and you will have to add in your own thoughts about the tabloid coverage, its that his management style and his techniques (thoroughly covered in the book) have worked. England, the football team, are winners because they have much more of a chance of taking a major trophy than they have since Venables.

This is a very interesting book and for anyone wanting to have management success, its relevant, useful and provoking.

Leadership the Sven-Goran Eriksson Way, by Julian Birkinshaw and Stuart Crainer, is available from all good book shops, priced £9.99.

Its ISBN No is 1 - 84112 - 589 - X