Wilson On The Perfect Role Model

Mark Wilson spent seven years on Manchester United’s books, including 1999’s Treble-winning campaign, before leaving the club in 2001. His career subsequently took him stateside and he is currently regional director of youth coaching in the north-east of America, where he implores youngsters to take notes from United greats – including the Reds’ current club captain…

"I wish kids out here in the United States would learn from Michael Carrick. 

"After retiring, I moved into coaching youngsters in New York, and one of my current roles is Regional Director of Coaching for the New York Club Soccer & New England Premiership Player Development Program. It’s a job I thoroughly enjoy; one which can be incredibly rewarding at times.

"At the moment, however, there’s a blessing and a curse, if you like, of the three most commercialised players in the US: Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo. They’re everywhere. They dominate the highlight reels and that’s why this country is producing a lot of good dribblers, but also players who aren’t always able to work in groups. Passing seems to be a lost art at the minute, because maybe kids are looking to the big three players, so they see dribbling as the be-all and end-all of the game.

"So when the kids play out here, they pretend to be one of those three. You won’t catch anybody being Michael Carrick, but he’s just the type of role model that I tell them they should watch. He is one of the best midfielders to play the game, and yet virtually no youngsters truly understand or value the qualities Michael has.

"He’s forever finding himself in space and, on the rare occasions he doesn’t, he never panics and rarely gives the ball away. He plays as many defensive line-breaking passes as anybody, and that’s a vital cog in any successful team.

"It seems to be a lost art at the moment in this country, regarding passing, creative movement, players off the ball helping the players on the ball, but Carrick is an example of somebody I tell my players to watch and absorb. When I talk to the kids out here, I freely admit that I go a little bit ‘old guard’. I talk to them about Giggsy, Scholesy, Roy Keane, Nicky Butt. If you want to watch a good full-back who rarely got beaten one-on-one then watch Gary Neville. Learn from the past. Go old school. 

"You teach what you know, of course, and United provided my educational foundation. It was a real privilege to be coached by the likes of Eric Harrison, Jim Ryan, Mike Phelan and Sir Alex Ferguson. The gaffer was the one manager who evolved his way of dealing with individuals over a 26-year period, and that part of his success isn’t written about enough. It’s very unique, how he adapted his frame of mind to different players; he would deal with foreign players or Millennials differently than he would Paul McGrath or Roy Keane. If you’ve been in that environment, you can only take stock of how he managed.

"I spent seven years at United between 14 and 21, and I value every second of it. I look back at the 10 games I managed to dig out, all the time I spent with the players in the first team, Reserves and youth team, and those experiences definitely built the foundations for my career now.

"English football is much more accessible these days, of course, and United are the biggest club out here. Even if you take the five boroughs of New York alone, I come across more United fans than City fans.  You go into New Jersey and there’s a mix of United, Liverpool and City, but United are ahead of them all, one of the largest sporting brands in the US, so the club is certainly influential out here.

"I just hope that when these kids watch United going up against Barcelona, Real Madrid and other teams during pre-season, they listen to my advice and don’t just look for the big three. Forget Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar; if they want to develop into perfectly-rounded footballers, they need to be watching Michael Carrick."