Falconbill
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- Dec 11, 2009
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I've always focused on managing a handpicked team in a league I knew and seeing how high I could take them. Time for a different type of career. Started out a new career game as a humble 20 something English Sunday footballer with no job. I scoured the head coach openings around the globe and applied for them all to see what I could get. The world would be my oyster!
After dozens of email rejections and a half dozen interviews that didn't work out, I landed a head coach job with a semi pro team (Boo FC) in Sweden's 4th tier after their manager got sacked and they were in last place. Spoke no Swedish, but agreed to take a crash course. In Sweden, the season runs from spring through fall, so starting in late June, they were already over 1/3rd through the season. Over the next 4 months, signed some free agents, rescued them from relegation, qualified for the playoff and got them promoted. It was November, and rather than stay with this semi pro club and sit around until the season starts next spring, it was time to try and find a bigger, full time professinal club. I figured there would be firings and jobs becoming available in the other European leagues and the January transfer market could provide an opportunity to turn a team around.
I applied to a bunch of clubs with openings and much to my surprise, I was hired in December to manage Las Palmas B in Spain's 3rd tier after they sacked their manager for putting them in the relegation zone, a third of the way through the season. This was a huge step up and my salary was more than five times the Swedish job (which should have told me I could be over my head). The team had talent (they were predicted by the media to finish in the top 4) and I added some free transfers in January which was enough to get them to a top half finish. Also won a Spanish Federation cup. The bad news . . . my players thought I was a total joke as a leader.
The Las Palmas job taught me 2 lessons. First, if your reputation is lower than your players, you're going to have big problems with your players. We were winning and player morale was very high, yet everytime I'd try to do a locker room talk or praise a player's performance, they either ignored me or worse. Just walking into the locker room before games was enough to set them off. It was so bad, I ended up delegating all player interactions to my assistant manager. By the end of the season, my leadership support went from very bad to just plain bad. Yet the locker room atmosphere was excellent . . . as long as I wasn't in the building . . . lol.
Secondly, this the first time I managed a "B" club that was affiliated with a parent club. The manager of the parent club (Las Palmas in La Liga) had total control of my player transfers. So I couldn't set my player transfer prices or decide who could be sold or loaned out or recall players that were on loan. The parent club was taking some of my best players on loan to fill injuries places on the parent club, which was frustrating, but understandable. But they were also loaning some of my first team players out to other teams, including free agents I signed to fill holes on my team . . . WTF? I quit as soon as the season ended.
Now it was time to find a professional club where maybe I could stay for more than a season. I may have found that club, which I'll describe in the next post.
This is turning out to be a lot more fun than handpicking one club in a league I know well and staying with it. In 12 months, my newbie coach rescued 2 teams from relegation, got one of them promoted and won a cup competition with the other one, learned 2 new languages and completed 2 coaching courses, while his reputation increased. Not a bad year's work.
After dozens of email rejections and a half dozen interviews that didn't work out, I landed a head coach job with a semi pro team (Boo FC) in Sweden's 4th tier after their manager got sacked and they were in last place. Spoke no Swedish, but agreed to take a crash course. In Sweden, the season runs from spring through fall, so starting in late June, they were already over 1/3rd through the season. Over the next 4 months, signed some free agents, rescued them from relegation, qualified for the playoff and got them promoted. It was November, and rather than stay with this semi pro club and sit around until the season starts next spring, it was time to try and find a bigger, full time professinal club. I figured there would be firings and jobs becoming available in the other European leagues and the January transfer market could provide an opportunity to turn a team around.
I applied to a bunch of clubs with openings and much to my surprise, I was hired in December to manage Las Palmas B in Spain's 3rd tier after they sacked their manager for putting them in the relegation zone, a third of the way through the season. This was a huge step up and my salary was more than five times the Swedish job (which should have told me I could be over my head). The team had talent (they were predicted by the media to finish in the top 4) and I added some free transfers in January which was enough to get them to a top half finish. Also won a Spanish Federation cup. The bad news . . . my players thought I was a total joke as a leader.
The Las Palmas job taught me 2 lessons. First, if your reputation is lower than your players, you're going to have big problems with your players. We were winning and player morale was very high, yet everytime I'd try to do a locker room talk or praise a player's performance, they either ignored me or worse. Just walking into the locker room before games was enough to set them off. It was so bad, I ended up delegating all player interactions to my assistant manager. By the end of the season, my leadership support went from very bad to just plain bad. Yet the locker room atmosphere was excellent . . . as long as I wasn't in the building . . . lol.
Secondly, this the first time I managed a "B" club that was affiliated with a parent club. The manager of the parent club (Las Palmas in La Liga) had total control of my player transfers. So I couldn't set my player transfer prices or decide who could be sold or loaned out or recall players that were on loan. The parent club was taking some of my best players on loan to fill injuries places on the parent club, which was frustrating, but understandable. But they were also loaning some of my first team players out to other teams, including free agents I signed to fill holes on my team . . . WTF? I quit as soon as the season ended.
Now it was time to find a professional club where maybe I could stay for more than a season. I may have found that club, which I'll describe in the next post.
This is turning out to be a lot more fun than handpicking one club in a league I know well and staying with it. In 12 months, my newbie coach rescued 2 teams from relegation, got one of them promoted and won a cup competition with the other one, learned 2 new languages and completed 2 coaching courses, while his reputation increased. Not a bad year's work.