I know there has been a lot in the press re Felix's 'take no prisoners' attitude to squad training and discipline, so I thought I would add a little more fuel to the fireâ¦.. (The following is an excerpt from 'Who Invented the Stepover?' by Paul Simpson & Uli Hesse): From the chapter entitled, 'Who was the scariest manager?'â¦â¦. 'Felix Magathâ¦nicknamed 'Qualix' (a play on his first name and qual or 'torture'), his remorseless efforts to instil the right kind of discipline at eight Bundesliga clubs have made him notorious. When he left Wolfsburg in October 2012, the first thing the gleeful players did was have a whip round to buy a CD player so they could play music in the dressing room again. Magath's distinctive contribution to the coaching profession was probably his elaborate system of finesâ¦Magath's fines included 500 euros for letting the ball bounce in front of you and 1000 euros for an unnecessary back pass. He famously fined Wolfsburg striker Patrick Helmes 10,000 euros for not working hard enough when the other side had possessionâ¦Jefferson Farfan, who played under Qualix at Schalke, said once: 'I would rather go back to Peru and break stones than play for him again.' Yet Magath's method of instilling fear in his players often brought short-term results, which is why he was known as an unusually successful fireman, a coach brought in to ward off relegation.' Sound's a little bit scary for our Fulham squad but I think that last paragraph offers us some hopeâ¦..
Think how differently we'd have played over the last couple of years with those fines. Leaving aside the penury Berba and Ruiz would have been reduced to, Wiping out unnecessary back passes would have been brilliant. Maybe Madman Magrath is what we need. Since the initial scare stories, I've read accounts of how some of his players - including the much quoted Fjortoft - loved playing for him.
