Page 135 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

In England, on the plus side, there was an improvement in man-management. That was good. The
communication between match officials and players was much more constructive. People in authority
have to be able to make decisions, and a lot of them lacked the ability to reach them quickly. The
human element tells you a referee can be wrong. But the good ones will make the correct decisions

more often than not. The ones who make the wrong ones are not necessarily bad referees. They just
lack that talent for making the right calls in a tight time frame.
It was the same with players. What makes the difference in the last third? It’s your decision-
making. We were on to players about it all the time. If I were starting again, I would force every
player to learn chess to give them the ability to concentrate. When you first learn chess you can be
three or four hours finishing a game. But when you’ve mastered it and start playing 30-second chess,
that’s the ultimate. Quick decisions, under pressure. What football is all about.