The patience of the next big thing

BURNLEY, England — As he looked ahead to the summer, Vincent Kompany realized he was entering uncharted territory.

He had spent his entire career with barely a moment to catch his breath. During his playing days, the seasons raced past: league matches, cup matches, European matches, international matches, all piled on top of each other. Summers were squeezed into the short gap between major tournaments and energy-consuming, globe-trotting travel in the preseason.

As a manager, Kompany’s summers would certainly have been even more hectic. Not that it had come as a surprise: he had chosen Burnley, newly relegated from the Premier League to England’s second tier, as his first head coaching post outside his native Belgium. The championship is proud, unashamed, gleefully grueling, a contest that identifies itself as an endurance event. “Just mentioning the name is exhausting,” Kompany said.

And so that was proven. From the outside, Kompany and Burnley had made it all look pretty simple. The club had confirmed an immediate return to the Premier League by gaining promotion with a month to go. It ended the campaign with over 100 points. For Kompany, however, that was a misconception. “This competition is brutal,” he said.

As proof, he pointed to the fixture list: 46 league games crammed into 39 weeks, with the season concluded on 5 May. “And we had a month’s holiday before the World Cup,” he said. The most valuable reward of promotion, he says, is not the wealth it brings, but the prospect of not having to experience it again.

“Coming out of the Premier League is the best motivation to get back in,” Kompany said.

Of course, it had all been exactly as he’d expected. The problem was figuring out what to do when the movement stopped. There would be three months between Burnley’s last Championship game and next season’s first in the Premier League – a gap much longer than Kompany had previously experienced. There was suddenly too much time.

The solution he came up with – something he said he had never tried before – was basically to give his players two pre-seasons. They would have two tranches of vacation on either side of a training camp in Portugal, attempting to strike a balance between letting them recharge and not letting their edge slacken.

However, he did not fully practice what he preached. His season did not end with the championship schedule closing. On his first free weekend in 10 months, he attended four matches: three in the Premier League, where he was already scouting opponents for next season, and one in Salford, in England’s fourth tier.

That combination, of the attention to detail of a perfectionist and the work ethic of an obsessive, is characteristic of Kompany. It’s what those who played with him, especially at Manchester City, remember most clearly: a focus, a sense of responsibility and an eagerness to learn that is perhaps best summed up by the fact that he used to be all the different (and largely justified, he was not an unjust ruler) fines he had imposed as a captain in a real ledger.

And that made his move into management – first at Anderlecht, the club where he started and ended his playing career, and then at Burnley – so natural, so obvious, so clearly destined for success. Of course, it is impossible to predict with any certainty which players will become good coaches; However, Kompany seemed like a pretty safe bet.

Safe enough, sure, that Burnley wasn’t his only option last summer, or his only offer since. Kompany has a policy of not engaging in speculation at any level; the only time he got slightly nervous, during an interview at Burnley’s training facility this month, was when his determination not to talk about it went against his natural inclination for openness.

And while he thus acknowledged turning down some “really big clubs” last summer to join Burnley in the Championship – volunteering to take part in what even he describes as a “fight with a bunch of hungry dogs” – he wouldn’t be at all attracted to what’s happened since then.

Fortunately, others are not so discreet. Those voices said Tottenham got in touch after it sacked Antonio Conte. Chelsea, a team seemingly permanently looking for a new manager, also approached him. Leeds considered him a replacement when it sacked Jesse Marsch. He said no to all of them.

This summer would undoubtedly have brought more offers, not only because of Kompany leading Burnley to promotion, but also because of the way in which it was done. In the space of 10 months, he completely overhauled the club’s style, taking a team that had for years been characterized by a gruff, battle-hardened, understated style and infusing it with youth, flair and élan.

“I built on the values ​​that defined Burnley,” Kompany said. “Culture is different from style. What was Burnley before? Hardworking, courageous, tough. I tell my players that while we may not be the biggest team anymore, we can still be the strongest, the smartest and the bravest. There’s spice in our game. That hasn’t changed. We couldn’t have the flair players we have if they didn’t understand what it is to be a Burnley player.”

He may not quite see it as the transformation it appears to be, but it’s an impressive body of work nonetheless. Rather than turn that into a lucrative offer elsewhere – the Spurs job is still available and Chelsea’s will no doubt reappear in a few weeks – Kompany opted to sign a new five-year contract just before the end of the season. to sign with Burnley. .

It was an unorthodox, vaguely heretical decision. Elite football is a shark, forever ahead. Managers, like players, are conditioned to believe they need to understand bigger, better things the moment they emerge.

This was undoubtedly Kompany’s moment. He’s only 37 – still in his infancy by management standards – and he’s finished his apprenticeship. Now was the time to climb another rung of the ladder towards what many believe is his ultimate, inevitable destination: to replace Pep Guardiola as Manchester City manager, should he choose to step aside.

That Kompany chose to wait instead can be partly attributed to his relationship with the hierarchy at Burnley – “I trust the people” – and his excitement about what is still to be achieved. The economic realities of the game could put winning the Premier League with Burnley, for example, out of his reach, but he is confident that his team, this club, has not yet reached the top. “We are still far from our ceiling,” he said.

However, his decision to stay is largely based on his belief that speed should not be confused with progress. Football, Kompany knows, offers very few “good settings” for coaches, places where they can hone their skills and define their methods without worrying about unnecessary interference or the sudden, wild mood swings that can come after a discouraging few weeks . .

At Burnley, he feels he has found one. “Being with the right people is a big advantage,” he said. Moving on, moving in what most would see as the general upward direction, treating management as a series of challenges to be met and levels to be met may not be the acceleration it seems. Standing still may be a better guarantee that he will get where he wants to go.

“The only destination I have in mind, from a coaching perspective, is to be the best,” he said. “The path is not how fast I get there. I want to be the best no matter what the steps are, and that result takes time in any course of life. In his mind, it’s a “universal recipe,” though perhaps best thought of as a comparison.

Kompany clearly has an aptitude and talent for management. His work at Burnley proves that. But talent is only the first step. “You develop talent through time and effort to quality,” he said. He has never lacked the latter. It’s what marked his entire career. For once he feels he has the former too. He has time and he is willing to take it.