the nascent appeal of managerial competency

is that a saudi prince reference

nba becoming more like nfl in (theoretically) having coaches to manage these things is a v. interesting development to me.

― call all destroyer, Thursday, May 26, 2011 12:22 PM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark

wondering if the ubiquity of social media/blogs plays some role in highlighting the importance of coaching. so many blogs out there breaking down games and teams and analyzing, intense amateurs playing along as armchair coaches.

― dayo, Thursday, May 26, 2011 4:26 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark

Reposted from ILHoops, because it concerns both increasing specialization of coaching roles in American sport, which was already touched on itt, and (implicitly) the potential infiltration of the closed-shop player-manager axis by amateurs (or legit/accredited Fourth Estate members, I guess) who make tactics or statistics their specialty, and gather their credentials by blogging about top-level football rather than managing a lower div. or youth side. NFL/NBA/MLB have a head start in this regard but I can envision it becoming a thing in Europe as well.

The subtext of that post I copied is, I believe, that the intense amateurs are already being added to team payrolls, and that it'll be only another few years before they move from behind-the-scenes "analyst" roles to being visible presences on the court/pitch during play. And potentially only another generation after that before they become legit candidates for head jobs.

Stories about Mourinho and Villas-Boas have focused on fortuitous elements in their trajectories, like their getting into the club setup as translators, Mourinho's family connection, the coincidence of a teenage Villas-Boas living in the same apt. block as Bobby Robson. In 2011 all these pieces don't necessarily need to fall into place in that way, because there's an outlet for anybody as precocious as AVB apparently is/was to make a name for himself without any club affiliation at all.

dream job, where do i apply

I think the fact that we broadcast whatever microscopic kernels of insight we have here, rather than hoarding them for monetized publication on our influential blogs or Twitter acct.s, means we don't have the cutthroat mentality required. If you see some of your own wisdom repackaged elsewhere as new content, that's the guy to watch out for in the big club managerial openings of 2022.

Funnily enough with basketball a lot seemed to happen through gambling - guys who could consistently beat Vegas were seen as people worth employing.

And football gambling websites are starting to publish advanced-analysis pieces, are they not? It's not an aspect of the sport I follow closely but I've read pieces by the Zonal Marking author on betting sites.

Compare the CV/career path of Damien Comolli (Liverpool) with his American analogue, Theo Epstein (Boston Red Sox). Both employees of John Henry/FSG in positions of comparable importance, and both very young for that level. But Epstein reached the highest level much faster despite being much less credentialed - from 1992-95, he was editing the sports section at his university newspaper while Comolli was coaching Monaco's U-16s.

Which is to say, American ownership of European clubs could accelerate the rise of young overachievers.

The executive who gave Epstein his first high-level job is not part of the Liverpool ownership group, but the guy who poached him from a smaller team and installed him with the Red Sox (a Wigan-big 4 level jump, I'd say) just a couple years later, still under 30 y.o., is.

No-one is interviewed about their prospective plans for the club or what they think of it already etc.

I believe Celtic employ this interview method, but it got us Tony Mowbray, who talked a good plan but completely failed at putting it into practice. Also wasn't given time to put his longer-term plans into practice (see last-ditch salvage attempt to buy/borrow nearly a whole team halfway through the season, which failed completely).

Neil Lennon was doing press conferences with the Chief Exec just before he got the job full-time, where a lot of emphasis was put into long-term strategy and vision rather than just "we'll throw money at Robbie Keane and hope we can score our way into the CL".

When did the term 'project' enter the managerial phrasebook? Who coined it? Was it when Mourinho joined Chelsea? You hear it all the time now, pundits talking about 'the project', 'Mancini's project', 'Mourinho's Project'. Does it say anything about the role of the manager in the modern game, if indeed the role of the manager has actually changed over the years, or am I overanalysing?

No, it's definitely a thing - a sort of businessspeak, forward budgeting, brand-awareness type of affair. I associate it with Chelsea too, but more with the whole line of hiring Hoddle, signing Gullit, and keeping going from there. Not sure when the word itself started to be used, though.

A thread for failed Football Projects?

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/no-more-freddie-ljungbergs-1418128.html

the other big one of the last few years, slightly off topic, is "we are in a good moment"

caught ray wilkins trying to get away with it on sky sports one night "they're in a good moment"

That's a definite Ancelotti thing, just a verbal tic. Glenn Hoddle favoured 'situation'. Think Vialli had one as well.

'In a good moment' pops up in the English of various native Italian, Spanish and Portugese speakers, there must be an equivalent across all those languages.

yeah, that's been pointed out before. Mourinho def used it on occasion, big jack too

How does the search function work on dis ting? Trying to find the first appearance of "in a good moment" on ILX just gives me a load of Ronan's posts from 2001 talking about Thing X being 'good at the moment'.

shudder

capello loves "in a good moment" too...

I will admit that I am still entirely in the dark as to how football mgmt works in Europe after seeing countless mgrs hired amidst fanfare and then fired 6 or 12 or 20 months later after few signings and little time to build a team or adapt a built team to a new style of play (or both).

I think we all just saw Mou's week point; his antics may have given him some cover but flipping out over bad calls isn't exactly an example of the sang-froid of a great leader.

I wouldn't laugh too much at 'good moments'; I believe they definitely exist, if only in the minds (and self-belief) of an organization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG16jv-itYw

This is the earliest I can find:

It's wrong to mock non-native speakers of English for their mistakes, but the expression "he's in a good moment" (to describe a player on a good run of form) is starting to get on my nerves.

I just worry that it's only a matter of time before it rubs off on the English lads and you get, say, Joe Cole saying Yeah, Didier's in a good moment, ya know.

― Daniel Giraffe, Monday, February 8, 2010 10:28 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

Not ILX, but the earliest dateline that appeared in a quick Google search was a Jose Reyes interview from 2005. He was using it correctly though, because he really was only good for a moment.

It definitely feels latinate to me.

xps, whole lotta wrong in here probably:

In Europe I think 'managers' are more head coaches who work within an entrenched management structure. They manage the players and to some extent give direction to how the team plays at the time, but they don't really do strategy insofar as controlling signings, youth development, financial things, etc.

In Britain, though, the system at least until very recently seems to have been almost totally arbitrary - the manager comes in as an autocrat and has immediate full control over everything, but without much structure other than what he brings in himself. Meaning that he's basically a charismatic autocrat, and the only way to tell how well he's doing is by results which are to a fairly large extent down to form or chance. Which seems a bit ludicrous but never really gets questioned.

The notable exceptions are where:

• the club has made an effort to build a structure with the manager being more the face of that collective than an autocrat (Liverpool from Shankly to Dalglish I, arguably Chelsea since Hoddle, possibly Arsenal depending on what exactly Wenger's done there)
• particularly strong individuals have managed to entrench themselves and an actual culture appears to establish itself from them (Busby, Revie, Clough, Ferguson?) but depends so much on their charisma that it doesn't survive long afterwards.

Charisma's probably the most important factor for any manager, provided you allow a fairly broad definition of that word. Especially for outsider types who don't have the aura of a legendary playing career surrounding them, I think. No amount of tactical genius will compensate for lack of belief on the players' part.

If Wenger were at a richer club, would he have more silverware?

How have Fergie's signings done on account? I always think of him as a savvy tactical buyer but I know there have been some duds, and some disappointments.

Was Greece's Euro win a tactical or charismatic win?

Mostly the former, probably? Afaict the players Rehhagel had suggested the style he employed, he didn't come in with a rep as an "anti-football" manager and have to corral a bunch of creative attacking players with big egos into a preplanned formation. But it's hard enough to figure out what club managers are up to, even harder with international sides.

I mean, we can't deny that there was a lot of 'good moment' and a lot of luck in that win but it's since been derided as the 'anti-football' yet as you say, he didn't exactly have a wealth of exciting attacking options.

Yes, and that probably meant that getting his players to carry out negative tactics much easier - they knew they were suited to them. Whereas if Mourinho can get next year's Real Madrid team, which scored 102 league goals this season, to continue to play in a reactionary style against Barcelona (and win this time), it'll be largely a product of his personality/man management abilities.

I think Ferguson and United's utter dominance of the Premiership era has let to a load of entrenched received wisdom about "the right way" to manage a football club vs all others but Fergie kinda got lucky being the best team at the right time and having the right kids at the same time and his reputation has lived off that for a long time.

Real were utter shit during the first leg at home. They looked like they were either cowed (hard to believe), had lost Jose's script, or had started to believe in Barca and not in themselves.

That come-back against Bayern wasn't 'having' the right kids was it, Matt? Solskjær was practically unknown before signing and Sheringham was brought in 'cause Cantona had left and it showed the kind of grit that Ferguson insisted on.

That's true but I'm not really talking about winning Champions Leagues, I'm talking about building a philosophy of how to successfully manage in England. And in England there are only two - Ferguson and Wenger, and the shine has come off the latter a bit.

His annoying moments of cecity aside, I don't think Wenger's all that different than he was 'at his peak'. I think that with the influx of foreign money and players and managers (of which he was a def harbinger), the league is much more competitive and his relative spending money compared to other clubs is down. Also van Injury etc... The draw against Newcastle was a disgrace, though, so maybe he deserves some of his present lack of lustre.

He's not really made signings of the quality of Vieira/Anelka/Henry over the last few years though. A concurrent decline in French football might also have something to do with it.

Winning the Cup Winners' Cup with Aberdeen answers any charges that good fortune played a part with Ferguson. He'd've been an amazing success anywhere. That generation of great kids was an absolute freak, but without them he'd just've won things a different way (see e.g. this season).

xpost re: Wenger - As has been pointed out many times, heseems to be trying to protect his legacy by moving the goalposts - defining the club's success in terms of achievement given certain limitations, mainly the youth of his teams and the relatively low transfer expenditure (balanced by a high wage bill), but also the stylishness of the football they play.

Maybe Wenger's less comfortable judging talent from outside Ligue 1, which could help account for the sizeable gap between the France-sourced invincibles and the likes of Rosicky, Hleb, Arshavin. I still think his current French gambles (Nasri, Koscielny, Chamakh) could end up being successes. And Eduardo was just bad luck.

Wenger's best three signings didn't come from Ligue 1.

One thing I don't get about the Fergie legacy is the fact that he won so much with a well developed youth team doesn't seem to be taken into account. It is all in the cult of Fergie personality and although lauded players like Beckham, Scholes and Giggs obviously grew up living and breathing the Utd way, it is rarely spoken of as an important quality. (Maybe because the two best players to play under Ferguson were Schmiechal and Ronaldo, leading people to not focus so hard on it.)

although lauded players like Beckham, Scholes and Giggs obviously grew up living and breathing the Utd way, it is rarely spoken of as an important quality.

Uh, it's spoken about all the time

cantona, for a start.

yeah cantona surely the key signing, more so than ronaldo certainly.

Still baffling why Leeds let him go to their main rivals. It's impossible to imagine an equivalent transfer happening today.

Supposedly Fergie asked Houillier if Cantona was as much as a headcase as was rumoured at the time and Ged told him that the stories from France were exaggerated and that cantona hadn't been treated that well by the federation and that he'd been fine for Fergie. Thanks Ged.

Top ten key signings in order, something like this imo:

Cantona
Keane
Schmeichel
Ronaldo
Vidic
Ferdinand
Van Nistelrooy
Stam
Rooney
Sheringham

Crikey, they've signed a lot of top players in the last twenty years.

I might put Yorke and Ince in there as well. Yorke was incredible for a couple of seasons. Oh and Andy Cole.