As a kid growing up in the 90s my image of a football coach or a manager was an elder gentleman
with grayed or balding hair, a little round in the middle and having a semi permanent scowl on his face either barking orders in a British winter or standing quietly on a warm Mediterranean night with smoke choking the air surveying the scene. The likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Gerard Houllier, Vincente Del Bosque, Sven Goran-Eriksson, Sir Bobby Robson, Marcelo Lippi, Giovanni Trapattoni and Jupp Heynckes are frankly what I was use to. All of these gentlemen have lifetimes upon lifetimes of games managed between them. As I’ve aged, these men who were already for lack of a better word “old,” even when I was a kid started to fade away from the touchlines. Del Bosque and Eriksson the only two from the bunch that are still currently actively mentoring. A natural turn of events and as their ilk expired the likes of Jose Mourinho, Roberto Mancini, Didier Deschamps and Pep Guardiola finessed their way into the managerial wing. Bringing with them a tidy, clean and stylized look to the pitch. Well groomed, sharp eyed and ushering a zest and zeal to the sidelines. Maybe I can’t articulate it as much as the real students of the game but they made an ancient sport more streamline. Pep Guardiola certainly had a solid playing career but I have to be honest I can’t remember seeing him ever playing. The more decorated Didier Deschamps I certainly recall stroking the ball around for those powerful France sides of the past. Roberto Mancini as a player I only go by what people said of his career and as Jose Mourinho, he was nothing more than a lower leaguer in his playing days. My relationship with these men are recent, simply because coaching for them is all I know of them. They are the successors to the Fegusons and Robsons and now they've started a trend and their brand seems to be the one in vogue.
Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger and for now England’s Roy Hodgson’s are true relics of the game. The parental, father-like coach is being phased out either naturally due to retirement or being pushed aside by these younger minds. Sounds a little outlandish but I ask. Why haven’t we seen the likes of Alan Curbishley or Harry Redknapp doing anything significant in the last few years? If we start to research maybe that claim doesn't seem so far fetched. As the popular adage goes “time waits for no man,” coaches like players retire too...they simply can not carry on forever and as for them being forced out...well you be the judge! It is hard to say from my end. Yes, the hot new thing is to have a new kid on the block coach but elder statesman like Carlo Ancelotti and Fabio Capello are still among the best managers still in circulation so a few holes can be poked in that theory.
One could argue that the older manager maybe more pricy than his younger counterpart, which is a fair assessment with the better young guns like Guardiola and Klopp the two that buck the trend. I find that most clubs in these new financial times play the guessing game. Banking that a bright new young savior will rescue them which is odd from a traditional business standpoint. Elder coaches tend to demand a higher wage so financially offering a greener guy new to the role of coaching a smaller fee can only have an upside most teams hope. It has worked some of the time, prime example coming in the form of Atletico Madrid’s appointment of Argentine Diego Simeone a few years ago. His salary has no doubt increased due to the bevy of titles he has already delivered to capital club. On the other end of the spectrum the rookie coach can lead an already established side into wilderness of relegation and financial irresponsibility. Former Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur manager Tim Sherwood can attest to that. Being deployed at Tottenham was a blessing in disguise as the London club were too stable to really suffer from the newbie’s teachings. However you place him at Aston Villa and what you got was a sacked manager and a historically strong club on it’s sick bed ready to slip into relegation. Villa are one of the founding clubs of the old English 1st Division a team never to be relegated. Through financial mismanagement on the part of ownership by either not investing in on field talent and Tim Sherwood’s hiring...which I also cite as financial mismanagement this an old pillar of English will fall. A young inexperienced manager who didn’t have the know it all at the time has ultimately led to the destruction of a club’s honored status. Aston Villa will be relegated this season of 2015-16 and Sherwood would had had a huge part to play in that. Aston Villa wasn’t in most recent times a side a-washed with money but what little change they did have they could had gone out and get a manager who had the a little gray hair and proven track record. If they did maybe Villa would not be smarting. Simeone and Sherwood are just different sides of the coin when it comes to the youthful managerial debate.
The new wave of coaches coming through sit a little odd for me at the age of 27. Currently Sampdoria’s Vincenzo Montella, Bordeaux’s Willy Sagnol, Real Madrid’s Zinadine Zidane and my personal favorite Deportivo la Courna’s Victor Sanchez are all players who saturate my childhood memories. How many times have seen Victor deliver a cross to Walter Pandiani or Diego Tristan in the Champions League that led to goal sending the Depor fans at the Riazor into pandemonium? Montella saving Roma from defeat with a last grasp equalizer in the Serie A for me is still vivid image in my mind. Willy Sagnol hustling up flank for Bayern Munich and France to go snatch a the ball from some other worldly striker that thought is so fresh for me. As for Zidane! Pick a game and I will tell you about it...I am getting older, this is true but seeing these guys running the show at their respective clubs is surreal for me because I still see them as when I was a little boy. Victor was my hero and so many good feelings for me personally involve him kicking a ball. Now he is the one telling people to kick a ball and the child in me wants him to do just as well. Maybe this article is a little pointless in that I’m not just highlighting new coaches coming into the frame and older ones panning out of view but rather showing me a glimpse of my life and how I saw the game then and what I see now.
Somewhere in Brooklyn at my 9 to 5 about a few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting a friendly
Austrian traveller. He told me how much he loved New York City while I replied by saying Vienna looks like a charm. To move the story along it has to be said we were in a NBA store. So the eventual topic of basketball came about. He is a foreigner and let’s be honest their fascination with basketball is not like the average American fan of the game who is more like a cross between a moose in musk and a jaded ex wife. His fandom was innocent. He was excited to be in a NBA arena (if you haven’t figured out where I work by now you may be dense). We talked about basketball...my knowledge of the game kind of overwhelmed him and he tentatively backed into a zone of comfort and said he was a more of a football (soccer) man as a way I guess to gain a little advantage in a scenario that was not even threatening. I had no problem with talking about soccer and allowing him to feel maybe a little superior and comfortable after all I am in the service industry to offer comfort is my mo’. Problem with that is that he picked the wrong black guy to talk soccer with. Our Austrian friend said he was from Innsbruck but supported FK Austrian Wien. Here is where I wish writing some how allowed people to see the story unfold in pictures because words fail to do convey his reaction when I came with my response. He said in his Germanic laced English. “Yes I love love my Wien!” I simply looked at him and in my bland Baritone voice said.”I prefer Sturm Graz.” I don’t if it was the fact that I was black, living in America or I worked for a basketball team but he was shocked. Our conversation got serious I mention to him it’s a shame Andreas Weimann has not been able to kick on and that David Alaba’s injuries real curtailed his career so far. I even threw a little Andreas Herzog factoids for good measure. The man was impressed but I struck a nerve with him when I mentioned something. Somehow the New York Red Bulls entered this footballing frenzy between the two of us and it definitely tempered his tone. It was like watching a blacksmith taking magma laced piece of iron and setting into a vat of ice water from the most northern fjord. Our footy friend said he hate the Red Bull. Well with that I knew to only offer him Gatorade if he was in need of liquid energy...but all jokes aside I knew what he meant. I know Red Bull Salzburg of Austria was seen as marketing tool for a big cooperation and how its seen to be a blot to some in Austria on their league, a symbol of unwanted modernization in a traditional sphere which is European soccer. Patrick (that was our traveler’s name by the way) echoed what I had thought when he said “In Europe we do not like franchising like America!” Ironic that he said that in a NBA arena which was the home of a newly minted NBA team the Brooklyn Nets. A team he was raving about just a few minutes ago.
It got me thinking. Why are people not just in Europe but in the Americas, so against a and I use these terms loosely “farm or commercialized,” team? I happen to go to my fair share of New York RedBull games and I’m demonized by some of my friends for it...simply because the team is attached with a major cooperation and it’s root the New York/New Jersey MetroStars has been shushed away into the background. If you've ever gone on some Major League Soccer or local soccer forums the hate is venomous! Especially for the New York teams. The common term around the snooty circle of this newly found soccer bravado is “plastic.” Many claim the Red Bulls and their new crosstown rivals Manchester City’s American appendage New York City Football Club are not “real,” clubs because of their branding and new found history does not fit into the traditional. The strange thing is the concept of these type of teams popping up isn’t new. If you just scroll up you would see the iconic crest of Ajax. One of the most treasured teams in all of world football but if one knows what one is looking for the Ajax in the photo isn’t the one I speak off. I am referring to the Ajax of Amsterdam the great European power. The crest on display belongs to her feeder/farm side Ajax Cape Town of South Africa. Now I don’t live in South Africa and as hard as I try I don’t know how South African football fans feel about Ajax of Cape Town. I simply don’t know and I won’t speculate. The question I would direct to people who are opposed to these types of symbiotic relationships is if they think if these new “farm,” teams help anyone?
Ajax Cape Town came about due to the merger of two football clubs in the city. Seven Stars and Cape Town Stars in 1999. Ajax solidified the union by financing and instilling her philosophy and the club was born. Ajax Amsterdam placed a huge emphasis on youth and player development offering the children of locals to join a professional side not only in their own neighborhood and country but also a shot to ply their trade in the Netherlands. A reward for the most ardent students. By all accounts it is a formula that works. Go ask Everton’s Steven Pienaar. A South African kid that joined their ranks. A guy who would say and I’ve read quotes of him saying that he did not have the easiest of childhoods. A man who joined Ajax Cape Town then moved on to Amsterdam and then to the promise land of the Barclays Premier League. He isn’t the only South African boy whose dreams came true because of this Dutch outpost club. Ajax Amsterdam over the years have plucked the likes Thulani Serero who has been incorporated into their system as I speak. I’m not a fool. A dreamer but not a fool. Austria and New York isn’t South Africa. A feeder club in the prior two, yes can change a live of a young man but in the latter it can literally save a young man’s life. Ajax Orlando (yes there is an Ajax Orlando) in the United States is probably is a cash cow a ploy to tap into Americans’ wallets and the probability of a star emerging out of that organization will be a far stretch and I don’t think this will boost a community like it’s South African counterpart will. If Red Bull decides to create a team in Namibia there is no doubt even if the players produced aren’t that good there is no doubt the amount of good it will do for the area. A Red Bull team in New York isn’t really going to do anything...well except tick off a fan base.
My Austrian friend and those soccer hipsters on the on their MacBook keyboards are right to bark on about tradition in the game it is a massive part of the sport and it should not be overlook. I get it. Where they stand from having a big corporation or another club coming and absorbing their side or creating a new team out of the air could be bothersome. It makes the game look cheap. They are not wrong but I will also put forth the case of the teams that are created in troubled areas of the world. What likes of Ajax Cape Town and SuperSport United Football Club in South Africa an affiliate Feyenoord Rotterdam...Yet another super club from the Netherlands has done for these areas is phenomenal. I personally love sides steep in tradition. By all accounts England’s Notts County Football Club is the oldest professional team in the world. If I was a Notts County fan I would feel just a warm glow every time I see them play. It is this kind of feeling of belonging to an old honor that makes people adore such clubs. So when a team that just was thought up in a board room by a corporate stud emerges I can see why traditionalist would be irked.
I won’t ramble on any further, I could all day about the issue and for the sake of editorial quality I will close this chapter the best way I could...let’s not forget I am a fledgling writer. This notion that newly created teams are phony, cheap and a way for guys in a suit to make money is a harsh way to look at it because there always will be a scenario where that form of business will work and let’s not fool ourselves a Wolf of Wall Street character in a suit will always profit. Which is cute but I don’t care about that what so ever. If a little kid may he or she be from a football hotbed or a place that is trying to enter the heralded soccer circle...if a club can invest in that child and give them a tangible future in the sport I don’t see a problem. The kid that is in Red Bull Leipzig’s youth academy has much as a right as his counterpart in Hamburger SV to take a crack at this football thing. These arguments of newly minted and old gold football sides isn’t silly what they are is distracting. Fans and students of the game won’t ever get pass the surface level of the argument which is understandable but they should be reminded it is about the play on the pitch and the players produced and it shouldn’t matter how they got their start. What is important is that a get a start...One thing before I go and I put it to the those who despise these “farm,” or “commercialized,” teams. What if the best player in the world or of all time came from New York City FC or Red Bull Salzburg? When we tell his story will we omit the start of his career and the place where it all started because it had something to do with an energy drink?
