"I’ve met many great people in sport but one who now stands out as truly inspirational is Simon Clifford. A former teacher and soccer nut, he left teaching to set up the Brazilian Soccer Schools from his base in Leeds.

Critical non-essentials (CNes) are areas that you and the players believe clearly set you apart from your competitors but are not a part of the core functions of your business or sport. I have never known anybody to find so many ways of setting himself and his company apart from the established ways of coaching and playing football than Simon Clifford.

I first read about Simon in a weekly newspaper magazine- he sounded so different I had to meet him. I certainly was not disappointed when I spent a couple of days with him in Leeds to see how he operates. Observing him and his wife coach ‘socatots’ (kids aged as young as six months) right up to working directly with adult players was a breath of fresh air.

Simon has redefined terms such as ‘passion’, ‘drive’, ‘energy’ and ‘winning’ in sport. He is not afraid of pushing out the boundaries to challenge his players and all those who work with him. He has a great future.

We had time to discuss what had happened with England since the World Cup in relation to the key role in the England job of finding the next critical non-essentials, the extra inches, the edge vital for Winning. Simon said: “What’s the point in finding CNes if you haven’t the time with players to work on them? ”He was absolutely right. I just smiled that he had understood in minutes what I had failed to convince others about over a long period of time.

He plans and thinks further into the future than anyone that I have ever met in my lifetime."

From the Revised and Updated version of "Winning!"