by red37 » Sun May 13, 2007 9:02 pm
Nice article ive just read from todays Sunday Times regarding Spanish managers influence in European Football:
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Tracksuit armada
(From Wednesday’s Uefa Cup final to Rafa Benitez, Spanish coaches dominate Europe)
Ian Hawkey
Quiz question: name the last English manager to win a European trophy. The answer lies a long way back, exactly a decade. It is hoped that Sir Bobby Robson feels in strong enough health tomorrow to raise a glass on the 10th anniversary of his guiding Barcelona to victory in the final of the old Cup Winners’ Cup.
There are fewer senior cups in Europe now and far fewer English managers anywhere near them. Ten years on from Robson, a Spanish manager is far likelier to take a Premiership club to a Champions League title rather than the other way around.
More than that, a Spanish manager seems to have more chance than a Frenchman, a Scot, a Portuguese or anybody else of winning the majors.
This month guarantees a Spaniard being congratulated when the medals are given out for the Continent’s principal events.
A Spanish coach will lift Wednesday’s Uefa Cup in Glasgow, be it Juande Ramos of Sevilla, the holders, or the young and impressive Ernesto Valverde, who has led Espanyol through a tough set of ties to make their first continental final for 19 years. Seven nights later in Athens, their compatriot Rafa Benitez prepares for his second successful attempt at the big one, the Champions League.
They are the tracksuit armada. For the fourth May in succession, a Spanish tactician will end up with either the Uefa or the European Cup.
It would be neat to say that this all represents the fruition of a grand Iberian scheme to develop coaches and that the FA might learn something from its Spanish counterparts. It is not as simple that. In fact there are areas of Spanish football that still regard native managers rather snootily: Real Madrid and Barcelona, for instance.
None of Barcelona’s past 10 league titles, dating all the way back into the mid1970s, was won with Spanish coaches at the helm, and although the last man to bring any significant trophy to Madrid was Vicente del Bosque, Real have since offered long-term coaching contracts only to a Portuguese, a Brazilian and an Italian – with two Spanish caretakers in between – and when they gave the job to another Spaniard, Jose Antonio Camacho, he lasted barely two months.
Recent history is full of unspoken admonishments for these two grand clubs for failing to nurture their own. Benitez started his senior coaching education with Real Madrid’s reserve and apprentice squads; when they ask him back to take over the first XI, he now turns the club down. Ramos was in charge of Barcelona B 10 years ago: this season, his Sevilla team have beaten Barcelona proper twice.
Yet prospects of advancement and glory would have looked slender to Ramos, 52, and Benitez, 47, a decade ago. Between 1986 and 2000, no Spanish coach even won La Liga, let alone anything in Europe. So when Javier Irureta celebrated taking Deportivo La Coruña to the Spanish league title seven seasons ago, he immediately drew attention to his passport and to his buddies. He had, he said in his unamplified way, reminded his country’s club presidents that Spaniards could think and plan a good game as well as play it.
It looked like a turning point. Del Bosque won the European Cup that year, La Liga the next, and repeated Real Madrid’s Champions League triumph in Glasgow in 2002, just as young Benitez was closing in, as Valencia manager, on the domestic championship. Ol�. The game’s new ringmasters appeared to be from Spain.
“Rafa Benitez has opened the door for us,” says the ambitious Ramos, talking not just about domestic esteem, but noting that Spanish managers are now wanted elsewhere. Benitez can collect his applause as Spain’s international pathfinder first-hand when he arrives in Athens. This season’s Greek championship has featured a number of clubs managed by Spaniards, including the heavyweights AEK Athens and Panathinaikos.
“What is obvious now is that Spanish coaches are properly prepared, that they have a training for it,” says Del Bosque, who managed Besiktas of Turkey after Madrid sacked him the night he won them their most recent league title, in 2003. “We’re as well equipped now as anybody,” adds Camacho, who coached Portugal’s Benfica for rather longer than he lingered at Madrid.
As for the pair who meet in Glasgow, they are from distinct generations, Ramos five years older than Benitez, Valverde four years younger at 43. Ramos and Benitez had playing careers of minor impact, curtailed by injury.
Valverde was a winger nicknamed The Ant for his busy style and slight frame. He spent two seasons at Barcelona. He was not quite forceful enough to make himself a regular first-teamer in the Barça of Michael Laudrup, Romario and Hristo Stoichkov, but he remained a favourite at Espanyol, from whom Barcelona had signed him.
He would also play successfully at Athletic Bilbao, the club that employs only Basque footballers: Valverde had enough Basque in his background to meet that requirement and to appreciate Bilbao’s sense of local loyalty. His first management job was at Athletic; one of the features of his work at Espanyol has been his readiness to promote to the first-team players who have grown up through the club’s academy.
For a club such as Espanyol, recruiting the best young local footballers is a challenge. They are lucky in that they come from a big, well-populated city, Barcelona. They are damned because by no stretch of the imagination can they think that they are anything other than the second-most-popular club in that city. They have some good former Barça men in their ranks, such as the midfield creator Ivan de la Pena, and Valverde encourages football played with speed and width.
He is skilfully handling Wednesday’s underdog status. Fatigue may prey on Sevilla, who have other targets on their minds, he suggests. Espanyol sit mid-table in La Liga, Sevilla lie third. Ramos’s team have also just reached the Spanish Cup final, the trophy Espanyol won last year but stopped defending months ago.
This is Valverde’s first season in charge of Espanyol. Ramos took over at Sevilla in 2005 and inherited a fine squad with a strong tradition of local talent and good scouting. Before his arrival he had been warned about the claustrophobic nature of work in the city of Spain’s bitchiest local derby.
Unlike Barcelona, where Barça are clearly mightier than Espanyol; or Madrid, where Atletico are economically obliged to play the upstart next to Real, Sevilla and Real Betis size up as obsessive would-be equals, bilious rivals, their meetings almost Glaswegian in ferocity.
Ramos used to coach Betis. Two-and-a-half months ago, somebody in the expensive home seats at the Betis stadium sized up the Sevilla manager, the former betico,and aimed a bottle full of liquid at his head. It struck Ramos as he patrolled his technical area in a cup derby, hitting him high on the neck. He spent the night in hospital. The large purple bruise has only lately faded away.
Coaching kings of Spain
The fact that Spain supplies both teams for Wednesday’s Uefa Cup final ensures that a Spanish coach will add yet another glittering prize to their country’s trophy cabinet. And with Rafa Benitez guiding Liverpool to the Champions League final, it could be a clean sweep. The success of Sevilla’s Juande Ramos and Ernesto Valverde of Espanyol also serves to highlight the lack of success in Europe by English coaches
Juande Ramos, right, Sevilla, 2005
Age: 52. Close to being thought a journeyman coach after eight years in the top division with Rayo Vallecano, Real Betis, Espanyol and Malaga. Then took Sevilla to Uefa Cup in first season and made them, even in mid-May, strong challengers for a Quadruple in 2007
Ernesto Valverde, left, Espanyol 2006
Age: 43. A winger with Espanyol, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao as a player, made a ? ne start as head coach at Athletic Bilbao. In his ? rst season at Espanyol he has guided them to their first European final in 19 years
Spanish winners in Europe since 1997
2000 European Cup, Vicente Del Bosque, Real Madrid
2002 European Cup, Vicente Del Bosque, Real Madrid
2004 Uefa Cup, Rafa Benitez, Valencia
2005 European Cup, Rafa Benitez, Liverpool
2006 Uefa Cup, Juande Ramos, Sevilla
2007 Uefa Cup, Juande Ramos, Sevilla, or Ernesto Valverde, Espanyol
English winners in Europe since 1997
1997 Cup-Winners’ Cup, Bobby Robson, Barcelona
TITANS of HOPE
