How to Win the World Cup explores the role of an international football manager in a successful team. It looks at what the job entails and how the unique conditions of a World Cup football tournament changes the way coaches have to work with teams to achieve the best results. Often international managers and teams are viewed through the same lens as club sides, even by experienced pundits, but this book challenges that and lifts the lid on the true reality.

‍In order to get the most accurate snapshot of an international football manager's role, I spoke to dozens of former coaches and players from past World Cups - capturing people with different experiences across a variety of nations and eras. A World Cup brings this together in a way that no other sporting event does. Everybody plays the same sport, but has different goals and national environments to work in - and it's the people who tell this story best.

‍The experiences of two Brazilian managers, Carlos Alberto Parreira and Luiz Felipe Scolari, stand out to me most. Both are World Cup winners, but have multiple experiences with national teams that give them complete views of what it takes to be successful.Strangely, while both Parreira and Scolari got their hands on the World Cup trophies, their teams aren't as revered in Brazil as other past teams - even one or two that didn't win. This showed that it wasn't just results, but style of play and emotional connection with fans arguably makes as much of a difference when managing national teams.