Mate of mine was over in the USA a while ago where he was doing some coaching. He also had the chance to visit some clubs and it included Tampa Bay. Neil Collins, ex of us, was head coach. I was chatting about US football with him earlier this week and he said Collins was good to watch coaching. Apparently there is a few younger lads heading over there to learn to coach. Jon Stead now on Collins staff. I am pleased to see them getting some experience as a coach. Lampard and co just seem to think I was a great player so I can step in at the top level. I would love to see some of these young lads starting low work their way up. No reason they cant be the next De Zerbi.
Potter did similar in Scandinavia and I'm sure there was a highly rated coach at Madrid with Mourinho but it didn't quite work out when he got an opportunity. His name escapes me though. More of them should do it imo, I'd rather give them a chance than a Billy big bollix ex player. More players should go abroad as well, fair play to Bellingham, Smalling, Abraham etc for doing it.
Playing devil's advocate here, but the best chance of succeeding at the top level coaching, statistically, would be to start at the top level. Lampard would have been mental to reject the great jobs he was offered to go and coach in the second division of America. De Zerbi is an exception to the rule (and even still, he's won less league titles as a manager than Steven Gerrard to date).
There is a lad called Still at Reims who is doing an unreal job. I dont know what to make of him to be honest. Is he a genius, or is he riding a wave. Reims pay a big fine every time he manages a game because he hasnt yet finished his coaching badges! Quite a story actually. Really hope he turns into the next big thing.
Possibly mate, but longevity might be a challenge. Lampard showed at Derby he wssnt up to it for me. Yet Chelsea went all romantic. Gerrard same at Villa, out of his depth and once his coach went it showed. Not sure it is just de zerbi. History is full of coaches that earned their stripes. Wenger, Ferguson, the old Liverpool boot room. Mourinho as an apprentice for years. It may be quite a modern phenomenom that sees Zidanne etc walk in untested. Even Pep started in the B team. Klopp started low. Look at Hodgsons history and do not be surprised he can walk into a Palace side that were lost unde Viera and make them competitive quickly. I honeetly think experience of coaching, man management and in game tactics arent what you get as a player. You get from years on the touchline.
Yes I've read about him. Hasn't got a pro licence but has a ridiculous record. So they aren't bothered about the fine Learned it all from playing footy manager apparently
Footy manager! Didnt know that. Seems mad doesnt it. Lets see in 4 years. Would love him to be a big fish then and still playing fantasy footy.
Just had a quick Google of him and I may be a bit wide of the mark with "learned it all" but it definitely had an influence. This is from his Wiki... William Still was born on 14 October 1992[1] in Braine-l'Alleud, Belgium to English parents, Jane (nee Bagley) and Julian Richard Still, who left the United Kingdom two years earlier. His father worked for Shell.[2] Still has two brothers, Nicolas and Edward, both also active in football.[3][4] Growing up in the Walloon region, near Brussels, he went to a French language school and then learned Dutch by playing for Flemish football clubs. He went through Sint-Truiden and Mons youth teams, and finally played for Mons reserve team and amateur club Tempo Overijse, back then playing the Belgian Fourth Division.[3] Still has stated that playing the Football Manager and Championship Manager video game series helped him to decide to switch focus from playing at the age of 17, and move to England to start studying to become a coach at Myerscough College in Preston, Lancashire.[5][6] Still is a fan of Premier League club West Ham United.[7]
I agree with all of that but certain people need to take the chance when it's presented. I'm not sure Lampard and Gerrard have strong enough convictions about tactics to be good coaches and no amount of learning and losing in the lower leagues would have seen them climb the ladder. Chelsea, Everton and Villa made bad decisions but I don't think Lampard or Gerrard did. They took their shot. Look at Duncan Ferguson. Currently getting relegated at Forest Green and that Everton job will likely never be offered to him again. Pep only did a year in the B team, I'd hardly count that as doing his time. Zidane went straight in at the top. Between them, they're 2 of the 3 most successful managers of the last decade. The 3rd is Klopp, who started at Mainz (one of the best teams in German 2nd tier at the time, so not particularly low, though he earned his big chances). Times have definitely changed, probably because a coaches ability means less than finances in success these days. When wages were all low and transfers were smaller, coaching made more impact. Now a manager on a shoestring has an impossible task.
Some story that. Mind you giving up playing is something I cant understand. I eeked out every last game I possibly could. Nowt even close to playing footy, of any form. I met a couple of coaches last night, who want to bring some U18s to the club I work for. They walked into the room and I was shocked. Both 20. I honestly didnt think they were coaches at first. They have both stopped playing good level amateur footy already, and it blows mind.
To be fair I was wrong to use Pep as an example. He was always destined to be in the Barca hotseat. Cruyff alwayd advocated for him. I wonder how much time he spent in Cruyffs office just absorbing stuff. Used to be rhe case captains would be part of the mgt team, at least as a listening brief so they could make sure the players got it. I am sure Phil Thompson talked about this being the liverpool way, might be wrong mind. Maybe I shouldnt blame Lampard for taking his chance. I took my lads to Wembley when his derby team lost the play off final. I to this day think he lost that game with his lack of awareness and know how. Maybe I am too harsh, but I wouldnt want him anywhere near us.
Loving the intelligent discussion on this thread. I've often wondered how much the great coaches of our time.....the Busby,Shankly,Paisley,Clough,Ferguson.....were actually brilliant man-managers,knowing how to draw the skills from their players,rather than being fantastic technical and tactical coaches?
Think the guy who is in charge of Canada is very interesting. I watched them at the world cup and they play a good attacking style and seem very switched on tactically, they do however lack talent in certain areas which can hinder there progress. The head coach is from Consett and I think he progressed through women's football and eventually became the men's coach. Think he should probably be in more conversations regarding vacant jobs but his name never appears on the lists which imo is a bit of a mystery.
He'd managed in woman's football for 12 years and then men's for 5 (where he's got the greatest ever generation of Canadian footballers to manage). All at international level and at Canada for over a decade. It's a completely bizarre CV to judge. What level of teams do you think he should be on shortlists for?
He was on our coaching staff at the academy a good few years back, before leaving to work in New Zealand and join their national coaching set up. Personally, he would have been my choice to replace Johnson last year instead of Neil, but we would never have gotten him in a world cup year, sadly.
One of my favourites stories is about when Jan Molby joined Liverpool. Joe ***an signed him in 1984. Joe was one of Shanklys original boot room boys along with Paisley and Moran. In those days Liverpool would essentially scout a player for a full season before bringing them in. It was in the days of small squads so every new player needed to work. Molby trained for a couple of weeks then signed. On his first match day he was looking lost and worried as they warmed up and got ready. I think it was Ronnie Moran who went over and said what is wrong. Molby said nobody has told me what to do or how you want me to play. Moran said we signed you because we think you are the best in your position. We cant tell you how to play or what to do because we arent as good as you. I love that story. I think a lot of that happened more in years gone by. Now we have so many players coaches have adapted. Also coaches over think stuff. Some clubs even have throw in coaches. You see some players who need to be told what to do all the time, because it is what they are used to. There are still some who focus on man management more, like Mourinho I think did at Chelsea. Pep though is an out and out coach who is all about patterns of play and tactical setup, and he is a master at it
There's kind of an accepted idea that after the British spread football around the globe in the last couple of decades of the Victorian period, that foreigners took the game and became better at it than us. The story goes that we'd become so insular and sure of ourselves that being beaten by the Hungarians at Wembley in 1953 was a shock. Some people will tell you that we didn't really learn our lesson and it took us another 40 years, until Arsene Wenger turned up, to actually start taking coaching seriously. That's kind of true but it's also not. It is true that up until, and after, the First World War, no English club would even consider hiring a professional coach. Mainly because coaching was something that Johnny Foreigner needed, us Brits were innately skilled and intelligent enough to play the game we invented without being told what to do. There were English coaches, such as Steve Bloomer and William Garbutt, taking football abroad though. English coaches were very much in fashion in Austria in the 1920s and they helped to kick-start the so called 'Danubian School' which led to the great Austrian team of the 1930s, featuring Matthias Sinderlar the 'paperman', and eventually to that Hungarian side that beat England at Wembley. Even later on, Vic Buckingham was manager/coach of Ajax between 1959 and 1961 and some people think he helped sow the seeds of what became Rinus Michels' totaal voetbal. There's a good tradition of English coaches abroad. We just don't hear that much about it.
