Loved to loathed; revered to reviled; that’s so often the lot of playing star turned struggling boss. The list is long, and ever-growing, of successful footballers that fall short when it comes to applying their knowledge to management.
“This season, we have not been good enough,” admitted one recent ‘victim’ of this curse, Marco van Basten. His Ajax side had just conceded second place (and with it a Champions League place) to Steve McLaren’s FC Twente by virtue of a shocking 0-4 defeat to Sparta Rotterdam. That result followed hot on the heels of a thumping 2-6 reverse at the hands of old rivals PSV, who themselves have been rifling through managers like a tabloid hack through the dodgy expenses records of a cabinet Minister.
“Mentally and tactically, the team has shown to be lacking. Next season we should be a lot better,” was the former World Player of the Year’s brutal assessment of his squad. Within 48 hours, his bags were packed and the 44–year-old had departed the Amsterdam ArenA for the final time as head coach. “I am not able to fulfil the demands that Ajax have for a coach,” said van Basten.
Following his early exit from the game, aged just 30, van Basten took a lengthy sabbatical – committing himself to the golf course and, in 2002, publishing a thoughtful, innovative manifesto for the future of the beautiful game. The former Milan marksman suffered from spells of depression in the wake of his enforced retirement - due to knee injury - at an age when he would have been at his very peak, and it looked for all the world that one of the all-time greats would be lost to the professional game for good.
Ajax intervened, however; offering their favourite son a route back in with a role coaching the under-19 side of their famed academy. He was then a surprise appointment as national team coach. It was a position which Van Basten struggled to get to grips with and, despite the dynamic Dutch displays at Euro 2008, few were surprised at his resignation from that post. His tactics were often maligned, no less so when the Dutch were outmanoeuvred by their old master Guus Hiddink’s Russian revolution in the quarter-finals.
Back at his old club this season, van Basten fared little better. Expensive purchases such as Miralem Sulejmani and Darío Cvitanich backfired, while established stars Johnny Heitinga and Klaas Jan Huntelaar departed Amerstdam for opposite sides of Madrid. His continued exclusion of ‘keeper Maarten Stekelenburg in favour of playing inexperienced Kenneth Vermeer even prompted his successor as Oranje boss, Bert van Marwijk, to (unsuccessfully) call upon Edwin van der Sar to resurrect his international career once again. A UEFA Cup exit at the hands of Ligue 1 champions-elect Marseille was no disgrace, but recent results in the Eredivisie made Van Basten’s position untenable.
In the wake of Bayern Munich’s ruthless dismissal of Jürgen Klinsmann last month – and the Premier League failures of Roy Keane, Tony Adams and Paul Ince – the body of evidence grows ever stronger against the appointment of big-name stars, without sufficient experience, in high-profile managerial posts. It’s early days yet, but Alan Shearer’s motivational skills in the relegation dogfight have proved as stimulating as his yawnsome post-match analyses on Match of the Day. Even Frank Rijkaard, apparently heading the wanted lists of both Bayern and Ajax as a result of his initial success at Barça, flopped at Sparta Rotterdam in his first club-level appointment, and doubtless learned valuable lessons from his mistakes in the role.
There are exceptions, of course. Still wet behind the ears as a manager; Laurent Blanc is masterminding an exciting revival in Bordeaux’s fortunes. Roberto Mancini enjoyed near-instant success as Lazio, then Inter boss – though only after serving a valuable apprenticeship under Sven Goran Eriksson while at the former. Gianfranco Zola, with the invaluable assistance of Steve Clarke, has made a good early impression at the Boleyn ground. It’s true enough, too, that Pep Guardiola seems to have got a fairly decent handle on running things down in Catalonia.
Broadly speaking though, there’s no compensating for that most precious commodity – experience. It’s no coincidence that those in charge of the English ‘Big Four’ (Barcelona excepted, they are now Europe’s premier clubs too) are all 45-plus and have held posts previously at clubs diverse as St Mirren, Nagoya Grampus Eight, Extremadura, Nancy-Lorraine and De Graafschap. A little lower down the Premier League food chain, Martin O’Neill cut his teeth with Grantham Town, Wycombe, Norwich, then Leicester. David Moyes started out at Preston. Harry Redknapp career, as he never tires of recounting, began on the Bournemouth breadline.
While it’s crucial that potential managerial talent from within playing stars is nurtured and allowed to flourish, the unforgiving environs of the Premier League are not the ideal place to do so. Of the current crop of footballing talent, Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville have been most explicit in their ambition to manage at the top level. If they have even a lick of sense between them they should heed the warning of Klinsi and Marco’s managerial misadventures and start out small. The transformation from player to gaffer is not a given – virtuosity with a ball does not necessarily translate to effortless tactical acumen and people-management. Even for those with the requisite aptitude, management is a skill to be fine-tuned and honed to perfection.
Picture this, if you will: 38-year-old Wayne Rooney up to his neck in paperwork as he desperately tries to sell his star striker on transfer deadline day to keep Tranmere Rovers out of administration; sedately-suited, sensibly-coiffed Djibril Cissé publicly censuring his captain for spending the build-up to the Blue Square Premier playoff final in a top Macclesfield hair salon; Didier Drogba out on a rain-lashed Torquay training pitch, helping his top scorer to perfect the dark art of the penalty area swan-dive. It could happen...couldn’t it?
No comments:
Post a Comment