This is quite good from Eurosport We spent a minute with Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers, who becomes the latest Premier League boss to reveal his ideal dinner party line-up. If you hadn't been a football manager, what career would you have had instead? I would probably have gone down the route of being a teacher, maybe a PE teacher. Something involving sport would have been great. What was your first car? My first car was a Fiat Uno 45. It was a fantastic little car, with an ashtray that used to slide along the dashboard! What is, in your opinion, the greatest song ever recorded? R Kelly - I Believe I Can Fly. I could give you a few Irish ones but you wouldn't know what they were! What's your TV guilty pleasure; what do you enjoy watching when you get time? I enjoy the documentaries on Sky TV. I like looking into history and knowing what's going on in the world. So I get my money's worth from the documentary channels on my satellite package. If somebody made a film of your life, which actor would you like to play you? Liam Neeson. What's the nicest place you've ever visited? I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a lot. I enjoy going to Dubai. For the climate and the cleanliness of the country. It's a wonderful country. If you could throw a dinner party for any three people in history, dead or alive, who would they be? I would have Sir Alex Ferguson for one. An incredible man, a genius in football, and it would be interesting to know about his life, his stories and everything he's been up against. I would love to have George Best there. He was someone I really admired but never got the chance to meet, a Northern Irishman. He would also be able to exchange stories with Sir Alex from the Man United days. And... I would invite Robbie Williams just to give us a little song every now and then. He's also had a few experiences... What would you cook for them? It would have to be something very simple. Probably a wee bit of calamari to start. Then a main meal of some chicken and vegetables, all posh stuff! Then for dessert we would do a little bit of toffee pecan cheesecake - oh, it's absolutely stunning! I've got to do all three courses because it's a long night... What is your favourite sport apart from football? I enjoy snooker. A game of snooker or pool. I'm hopeless at golf, even though I enjoy a walk around the course. Crystal ball time â what do you think you will be doing in 2030? I would still hope to be managing. I would hope by that time that I would be renowned as a successful manager whose methods with young and senior players have provided innovation to help football in this country. http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/05102011/58/dugout-60-seconds-brendan-rodgers.html ------------ Swansea City manager Brendan Rodgers reveals his sporting heroes, rating Roy Keane as the best player in Premier League history. Who was your footballing hero as a boy? I really admired Diego Maradona. I was a left-footed player coming through, and he was somebody I loved to watch on the television. His power, his strength and his technical ability with one foot was incredible. He wasn't just a good player, he was a great player, and he was someone I used to love to watch. I really admired him and thought he was a wonderful player. Who was the most talented player you ever worked with? I've been fortunate to work with a lot of really good players. I suppose you could separate it into different categories. Players like Frank Lampard and John Terry, who have a great training mentality and are great contributors to the team. I suppose in terms of sheer quality in training on a daily basis, I would have to say Deco. When he came from Barcelona to Chelsea he was an incredible trainer, he could really master the ball and just had this genuine quality. He was outstanding in terms of football ability. Outside of football, who is the person you most admire and why? My heroes growing up were my mother and father. I never looked too far beyond them. They were a great inspiration for me growing up, and my father was always my hero in terms of my life growing up. What player that has graced the Barclays Premier League in the past 20 years stands out for you and why? That's a toughie isn't it? The whole Premier League years have been brilliant, with so many top players over the years. But I have to say one player I looked at and admired for his sheer drive and determination was Roy Keane. Roy at Nottingham Forest in the early years, then at Manchester United, was an incredible player and is a very hard act to follow. http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/06102011/58/dugout-rodgers-keane-greatest.html
Also from Eurosport: We spent a minute with Swansea fan Superswan99 As you won't be watching Llanelli v Swansea on Friday night because you got the days mixed up, what will you be doing instead? I'll be watching Wales v. Switzerland instead, maybe live at the Liberty or maybe on Sky, depends whether it's raining or not
Exclusive: Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers gives an insight into his coaching and describes Jose Mourinho's influence on his career. Q: You're known as one of the most progressive coaches in the game - what are the main elements of your philosophy? Brendan Rodgers: In terms of coaching I like my players to be technically strong and understand the game tactically, but I also think it's vital to maximise the extent to which every player can play the game, and it's also very important to understand the human needs element of players. In terms of the actual philosophy, I like my teams to be attractive and creative, but also with good tactical discipline, and that is really the core of all our work each and every day. How fortunate were you to inherit a squad of technically-accomplished players at Swansea who were used to a flowing, attractive style? Did that make it easier for you to make immediate progress? Certainly Swansea is a club with a tradition of having teams that play good football, and obviously they changed their structure when Roberto Martinez changed from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3, and from that moment the club brought in coaches and managers who understood that way of working and playing. That enabled me to fast-track and implement my own ideas into the group. They'd had a very good year in the Championship where they had finished eighth. Paulo Sousa took over and did an excellent job and they reached seventh position, and then I had the big challenge to take the club forward on a very limited budget. So it was really about trying to implement my own ideas - but the core of the group knew and believed in that way of playing. It was then a case of developing and improving that way rather than having to create it right from the beginning. You mentioned implementing a 4-3-3 formation - how much did your time at Chelsea with Jose Mourinho contribute to your development? Do you still stay in touch with Mourinho? Yes, I do stay in touch with him. But it wasn't just at Chelsea that I came round to that way of thinking. I have always coached my teams like that. From 20 years of age I studied in Spain and travelled throughout Europe, to understand the structure and the formation of 4-3-3. I had always done that as a youth coach, but obviously going to Chelsea allowed me to work with players at the very highest level, both youths and seniors. It also allowed me to explore and experiment with how far you can take that system with really good players. You and Andre Villas-Boas worked with Mourinho, while a large number of Sir Alex Ferguson's ex-players have gone on to manage. What is it about top managers that seems to rub off on the people they work with? I think you obviously have your own ambition, and you need people to give you a chance, who think you have the capacity to work at that level. But obviously when you get the chance to work with such managers it gives you a chance to learn from the best and develop, and Jose was a fantastic influence for me. When you move into management, you're working alone - you can't look to imitate or be anyone else, and you have to carry your own ideas with you. But the more experience you have the better, and I have been very fortunate to be able to work with lots of very good managers, world-class managers. I have then hopefully been intelligent enough to take on board the good and the bad, and work it into my own identity. Having retired from playing due to injury aged 20, do you think an early start in coaching gives you an advantage over ex-players who may not go into coaching until their mid-30s? It doesn't make it easier, because I had to go through a whole number of years when people didn't know who I was. Sometimes if you are not carrying the name of being a player you might not get a chance. On the other hand, what it did give me was time, I was able to look into every aspect of coaching and management and learn from lots of years of experience in that field. If you are an ex-player you have a different set of experiences. Somebody who was a great player like Roy Keane has operated at the top level and will have learned things that they will be able to use in their management career. My timeline so far has been perfect in terms of what I wanted, because I've been able to work through all ages of players from five-years-old to some of the greatest players in European football. So I wouldn't have changed it, and what it gave me was a lot of underpinning knowledge about players and their development. Last week you spoke of your admiration for Tony Pulis's achievements - what can a newly-promoted side learn from Stoke City? I think when Stoke came into the Barclays Premier League, they didn't only have a football club, they had a region behind them. They were battered from pillar to post in terms of their style, and that helped them forge a strong club identity. Everyone got behind them and they made their home ground a real fortress. That helped them stay in the league initially, and now they have been able to build because the money allowed them to bring in some quality players. Very importantly, they have developed off the field in terms of their facilities and infrastructure. It's a great blueprint for teams coming up. So I think in terms of how they've gone about it, they've been very sensible about it. They haven't put the future of the club on the line by spending millions and millions straight away - they have built it year on year, and clubs on the outside can see that is a great template. Has there been a change in the perception of how a promoted team should play, in light of the success enjoyed in recent years by free-flowing sides like West Brom, Reading and Blackpool? I honestly don't think there is a right or a wrong way to play. You are judged on your results. West Brom played some fantastic football under Tony Mowbray, were in the Barclays Premier League, and when they were relegated they were told they were too naïve. Watford came up and were a breath of fresh air for the first few months, and they went direct and long. Aidy Boothroyd didn't have a lot of time after they got promoted to change his style so they went with the philosophy that got them promoted. And after a few months when they lost some games, everyone was telling them they should be passing the ball. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to do it. You have to win games, but the coach's own philosophy will determine the way they play. What have you learned from your early-season encounters with top sides like Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea? Nothing that we didn't know before, but it certainly reinforced the quality of the players at that level - you can get punished for just one mistake. No matter how long the game has gone on and how well you're doing, you obviously have the possibility of conceding a goal. We have had an excellent start, sat in mid-table in 10th position after seven games, and that's having played Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea. So it's been a good start for us, but you know when you play the top teams it's almost a different league because of the quality they've got. It's given us confidence that we can go and compete which is very important. The promoted clubs have not as yet scored a large number of goals this season - how important is a prolific striker in helping you make the most of your chances?It's not vital. We can have a striker who scores 30 goals, but if we don't have contributions from elsewhere in the team, then we won't succeed. You have to have goals scored from as many areas of the pitch as you can. What was important early in the season was not just to show we can create chances and score goals, but also to show we can defend. And in the first seven games we have kept four clean sheets which is an incredible return - and now we are starting to hit form in terms of scoring goals. I don't think it's critical that you have a striker who scores loads of goals, because you need goals from other areas.
