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| Friday 5 September, 2008 |
| Blog: Manager or Coach? |
| As English bosses realise their transfer input is no longer needed, Steve Wilson muses that this has successfully been the case in Italy for years |
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The English Premier League prides itself on being The Best League In The World™, but the latest round of managerial madness just highlights another example of the game on these shores becoming more like it's continental cousin in Italy. We've already seen the influx of foreigners that the peninsula felt in the 1980s and last season British clubs such as Manchester United and Rangers progressed in Europe thanks to a stereotypical Italian defensive style. Now English gaffers are starting to realise that with foreign owners comes foreign methods regarding transfers.
It is why we refer to bosses in Italy as Coaches rather than managers. The traditional model of hierarchy sees the Coach do exactly what his job title suggests. His weekly job is to train the squad, tell them how to play, decide who will be in the XI on a Sunday and pat them on the back/kick them up the backside in the dressing room after the match. Who is actually in the squad is a different matter. That is usually dealt with by another person entirely - for example Fiorentina's Pantaleo Corvino, or in pre-Calciopoli days Luciano Moggi at Juventus.
English football has tried in the past to copy this system, with the laughable Director of Football role - a position in name alone. The system in England is too set in its old-fashioned ways, characters like Herbert Chapman, Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Jock Stein and Alex Ferguson fit the bill of tough tactians who controlled every aspect of their club from top to bottom - the true Misters like their predecessors who bossed so many of the Italian outfits in their formative years. But times changed in Italy, evidently the trends of the future were being set in Serie A - as usual.
Nowadays very few chiefs in Italy can claim to have complete control, Jose Mourinho says he asked for three players this summer and got them all - bar Frank Lampard, for whom he got his second choice in Sulley Muntari. But do you think Carlo Ancelotti wanted Ronaldinho and Andriy Shevchenko? The long-suffering boss knew it was the other end of the pitch that needed strengthening, but he didn't utter a word. Instead he will take what he has been given and do what he is best at - moulding a successful team. European and World championship winning teams.
Is it not a sign of weakness that the likes of Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley felt they could only build a winning machine if they chose every cog and gear themselves? Is the true mastery of the managerial game not taking the sum parts on the table and working to get the best out of them? Times are changing, to become the so-called best the clubs of the Premier League have had to grasp the nettle and turn themselves into continental operations. It's nice of them to catch up, but how many more of the old guard will fight the tide before realising that it's better to swim than sink?
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This "new" system is only a shock to the old school English managers, that can't bring in their own players (note I didnt say the best available players.)
A good transfer guru is an absolute winning formula, with the manager specifying a type of player and the Director of Sport buying according to budget, wages etc. Moggi was a legend at this (regardless of what people think of him) and Peter Kenyon has proven that this system works in the UK.
Keegan was naive in thinking he would retain the sort of autonomy he had in his first stint at Newcastle once Dennis Wise landed, and Curbishley has no excuse, a rudimentary search for Gianluca Nani's past in Serie A could have told him to like it or lump much earlier than last week.
The only problem I have with this system is when you have people in that position who aren't very good at their job (cough....Secco...cough).
Gurjit Kahlon, UK
Thought provoking article. Italy leads the way by implementing a system that was eventually completely controlled by one man through devious means. While, last year saw an 'old fashioned' manager triumph in perhaps the two most important tournaments in European football (certainly if TV revenue are anything to go by). The last throw of the dice by the old brigade, or does it point the way back to a system neglected by the majority of the new 'superpowers'.
The question surely is; does a club appoint a manager/Coach and expect him to work with the players that he is given, or do you let the owner(s) buy all the expensive toys from different sources and expect the manager to put them together in a winning formation.
Surely there is room for both approaches. However, if you were starting from scratch to build a super engine for a racing car, would you take the braking system from a Ferrari, the fuel system from a Honda, the clutch from a Williams etc and expect them all to fit together perfectly. In motor racing each design team designs its own parts to compliment each other and hopes to produce the best over all result.
Most Coaches would no doubt be happy to do that with a youth team and to buy a suitable player to complete the formation and give it that bit extra. What causes problems is when they are given an expensive player, who is very skilled but does not have the attributes to complete the formation. They then usually have to change all the other parts to accommodate the new one and sometimes this proves impossible. This approach is fast disappearing as big money buys the top clubs and everyone knows that big money demands immediate success or heads must roll. Maybe in a few years time the only manager in each country who will keep his job is the one who wins the title or a European trophy.
Gurjit Kahlon's comments ignore the fact that Moggi used methods to control the transfer market that were at the very least morally unacceptable and who knows what terms Kevin Keegan agreed when he joined Newcastle.
Brian La Piazza
Brian: I have not ignored Moggi's "crimes". Nothing they say Moggi did takes away from the fact that he was able to identify the right players for the team (regardless of how he actually procured them), which both added value to the quality of the team and maintained healthy bottom line. He was one of a few good examples i.e. Kenyon.
I don't mind which system a club adopts, so long as it works for them. My main point was that Chairmen need to be 100% transparent about who is in charge of what for all the management layers and that Keegan and Curbs could have walked once Wise and Nani were hired but didn't.
Btw Moggi got found guilty by a kangaroo court run by Interisti but this blog isn't about him or Calciopoli :P
Gurjit Kahlon, UK
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