The Same Origin Story
Last night PSG beat Arsenal on penalties in Budapest to win back-to-back Champions Leagues.
These are the two best teams in European football right now. And they were built the same way.
Both had superstars who wouldn't play in a system. Both got rid of them. Both replaced them with young, hungry players who'd buy into the culture. Both won everything.
Same origin story. Same pattern. Same result.
Arsenal
Arteta inherited Aubameyang and Özil. One was the captain. The other was the highest-paid player in the club's history. Both were problems.
Aubameyang was stripped of the captaincy for repeated discipline breaches. Özil was frozen out completely. Both gone within months. Arsenal were a joke at the time. Nobody thought this was the right call.
Arteta replaced them with Saka, Saliba, Rice, Ødegaard. Young. Hungry. Every single one of them willing to run, press and play in a system. Arsenal went from mid-table embarrassment to Premier League champions.
The management lesson: Arteta didn't just remove two players. He removed the excuse. The moment Aubameyang and Özil were gone, the standard applied to everyone equally. No special treatment. No different rules. The rest of the squad saw it and raised their game overnight.
PSG
PSG had Messi, Neymar and Mbappé. Three of the most famous players on the planet. None of them wanted to play in a system. Messi didn't press. Neymar didn't track back. Mbappé didn't share the spotlight. Three individuals doing their own thing, wearing the same shirt.
And PSG let it happen. Different rules for the superstars. "But they deliver results."
All three left. Luis Enrique arrived and refused to chase replacements. He brought in Dembélé, Doué, Kvaratskhelia, Zaïre-Emery. Young, hungry, bought into the culture. The starting eleven in last night's final had an average age under 24. None of them galacticos. Every single one of them bought in.
Last year PSG beat Inter Milan 5-0. Last night they won on penalties. Back-to-back European champions.
The management lesson: PSG spent years and hundreds of millions trying to win by collecting superstars. It never worked because the superstars wouldn't play by the same rules as everyone else. The moment they left and the club built around players who'd buy into a system, they became the best team in Europe. Not once. Twice.
I've been there. I had someone brilliant. Hit their numbers. Ran rings around most people in the room. But they were arrogant, undermined their managers, and were lazy on anything they decided was beneath them. We kept them for too long. Because they delivered results.
When we finally moved them on, the team was ecstatic. Not relieved. Ecstatic. We were a person down for months. Performance went up anyway. Standards rose overnight because the excuse had gone.
One person down, better results. Think about that.
But here's where most people get the lesson wrong.
This isn't "fire all your difficult people." That's the lazy take.
There's a difference between someone who's toxic and someone who's just intense. Ferguson knew this better than anyone. Cantona was difficult. Demanding. Did things his own way. But he made the players around him better. He trained harder than anyone. His intensity pulled the group up.
That's not a prima donna problem. That's elite talent being elite.
Messi, Neymar and Mbappé didn't pull anyone up. They played by their own rules and everyone else worked around them. Cantona played by his own rules and everyone else raised their game to match. Saka and Ødegaard play by their own rules and everyone at Arsenal rises to meet them.
The question isn't "are they difficult?" It's "does this person make the team better or worse?" Not their individual output. The team around them.
If they deliver results but people dread working with them, standards slip when they're involved, or good people ask to move teams, that's not a high performer. That's a cultural liability you're funding.
If they're intense and demanding but they pull people up with them, that's someone worth managing differently.
You probably already know which one you've got.
What managers can take from this
The best teams are built the same way. Arsenal and PSG both got rid of superstars who wouldn't play in the system and replaced them with hungry, young players who'd buy into the culture. The pattern isn't a coincidence. It's a blueprint.
"But they deliver results" is the most expensive sentence in management. PSG said it about Messi, Neymar and Mbappé. Arsenal said it about Aubameyang. I said it about my own team. The cost is never the person. It's everyone around them who stops trying.
Difficult is not the same as toxic. Cantona was difficult. Rice is demanding. Both made everyone around them better. The test isn't whether someone is easy to manage. It's whether the team around them improves or deteriorates.
What you tolerate becomes your real culture. Not what's on the wall. Not what you say in meetings. What you let slide. Arsenal and PSG both stopped tolerating it. Look what happened.
Have a great week,
Arran
|
|
Arran Russell
Founder, Set The Tone
|
Ps: If you know your people structures aren't working but you're not ready for a full-time Head of People, that's exactly what I built the People Partner for. Senior people-and-structure work for businesses in the messy middle. Book a conversation or just reply to this email and tell me what's going on.
