Football Management: Why do they do it?

Football Food For Thought / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 14 October 2010 /

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Carlos Alberto in illustrious company but his management career didn't quite achieve the dizzy heights of his playing career

"For every Ruud Gullit and Jurgen Klinsmann who walked straight into a glamorous job as their first managerial appointment, there’s a Martin O’Neill who cut his teeth in the lower divisions, exposed to each and every aspect of running a football club. You get financial issues, players with big egos and fans’ unrest just like you do at the biggest clubs in the world. Perhaps more so."

Did you really ever expect to see World Cup winning captain Carlos Alberto manage Azerbaijan? Jamie Pacheco wonders why former superstars of the game are happy to drop down a few levels to be involved in management...

If you watch enough football you end up seeing it all the time: the former superstar player managing a side you suspect he never even heard of during his playing days. I may be wrong of course, but I doubt that during his days as the glamour boy in Wimbledon's early 90s Premier League side, Dean Holdsworth knew too much about Newport County, the team he now manages.

We've all seen footage of the fabulous Carlos Alberto galloping down the right wing to drive home Brazil's fourth goal in the dying seconds of the 1970 World Cup for what many consider to be the best "team goal" of any major tournament. Minutes later he lifted the Jules Rimet as Brazil's skipper and a few years on he joined former team-mate Pele at the New York Cosmos for one last big payday as depicted in the superb "Once In a Lifetime". It's pretty unlikely that this legend of the international game imagined he'd be one day manage Azerbaijan (a side whose highest ever FIFA ranking was 97) as he did in 2004, his last job in management, after spells at clubs in the USA, Brazil and Mexico.

Like I say, watch enough football at different levels and you'll find plenty of other examples of this.

So why do they do it? The first obvious answer is money. We know that star footballers weren't always as well paid as they are these days and we've all read stories of Nobby Stiles and the like selling their most cherished assets from their playing days just to make ends meet. We also know that early retirements, unwise investments and perhaps even over-spending during their playing days mean that ex-footballers may need to seek further employment once they've hung up their boots and can't be too picky as to who they're employed by. And if at times they're frustrated that the players they're managing are a shadow of the footballers they were in their own prime-time, talent-wise at least, then that's just part and parcel of the job.

The second reason is that there is of course nothing wrong (with all due respect to the Newport's and so on) in starting at the bottom. For every Ruud Gullit and Jurgen Klinsmann who walked straight into a glamorous job as their first managerial appointment, there's a Martin O'Neill who cut his teeth in the lower divisions, exposed to each and every aspect of running a football club. You get financial issues, players with big egos and fans' unrest just like you do at the biggest clubs in the world. Perhaps more so. Gary Boswell thinks Dean Holdsworth is destined for great things and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be right. His Newport side are in action against high-flying league leaders Crawley Town at the weekend and I wouldn't put anyone off laying the home side at odds-on.

Then of course you've got boredom. They say you're a long time retired and there are only so many rounds of golf you can play and so much football you can watch on TV. Plus, we've all sat down and watched a game and secretly felt we could have done a better job than the guy in charge. Difference is, if you're an ex-player with certain attributes, you can probably get a chance to find out if you can sooner rather than later.

Finally we've got passion and love of the game. Carlos Tevez has tried to tell us over the last few days that he hates being a footballer and has had enough of the pressures and physical demands of playing professional football every week. Whether that's true or not only he knows but, if it is, he's probably one of very few who don't really enjoy playing the game for a living. His Manchester City side trade at [10.0] for the Premier League right now and though I expect that price to shorten at some stage; the better wager is to back the man himself for top goalscorer honours at [6.6].

David Beckham, Robbie Savage and Cristiano Ronaldo are but three players who seem to love and cherish every moment they're on the pitch. I imagine that they contemplate with horror the day they kick a ball in anger for the last time. I don't know if any of these three will go on to become managers and but if they do, and start out in the lower leagues, I suspect I know why they're doing it.

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