When the squad had arrived at the Marriott hotel in London’s Mayfair on that eventful Friday, they got to their rooms to find a letter written by their partners or loved ones left on the bed. Each then received a video on their phone via WhatsApp with more goodwill messages. That was not all. A video shown at the hotel at the final team meeting on the Saturday morning before they left for Wembley had a particularly rousing effect. It featured a female member of United’s security team who had previously worked for the British military and whose story had moved Ten Hag reliving the day in Afghanistan she became trapped in a village with her platoon. Outnumbered and in grave danger, she explained how they worked together to escape. Not all of her colleagues were so lucky and ended up sacrificing their own lives to save villagers. The video was interspersed with images of United players winning individual duels during games as Ten Hag attempted to convince his squad they could also overcome the odds.
It was not the only emotive video the players would watch. The previous afternoon they had been shown an edit from the hit US sports movie Any Given Sunday and the iconic motivational speech given by Al Pacino’s character, Tony D’Amato, coach of the fictional Miami Sharks. In it, D’Amato urges his players to “heal as a team” rather than “dying as individuals” and Ten Hag had footage of Pacino’s voiceover and the U2 hit song One cut with footage of every one of his United players in action. This was not a manager running away from the fight but one impressively corralling his troops in the face of adversity. “Erik never hid during the season, not once,” said a well-placed source.
www.theguardian.com
www.nytimes.com
I am sure they all do that sort of crap now.
