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| Yes | 65% | 24 votes | Total: 37 votes | |
| No | 35% | 13 votes |
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Add to FavoritesYes. Too often football (soccer) owners appoint ex players on the basis of how good they were as players rather than any proven managerial qualities. In addition, they often go for the populist approach of appointing someone who once played for their team
Being a football manager is an incredibly difficult job. It requires first class people management and communication skills, on top of a tactical awareness for the game. It also requires huge commitment, with most top managers working seven days a week and to all hours of the day.
Many modern day football professionals, especially at the top level, are extremely wealthy and therefore have an easy out if their venture into management turns out badly. Consequently, there are very few really top managers who were world class players. If you look recently at the top managers in the English Premier League, for example, the most successful managers have been Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, and Jose Mourinho, all of whom had very nondescript playing careers.
It makes you wonder how many other Mourinho-type managers are out there, if clubs would just be brave enough to look beyond the usual band of underachievers and dodgy ex players.
Sadly, it's unlikely that clubs will ever have the bravery to appoint a manager from outside the ranks of the professional game. Southampton tried to go down that road by appointing to a position of coach the former English rugby manager, Clive Woodward. Woodward had helped England win their first ever rugby world cup and was renowned for his leadership qualities, innovation and attention to detail. He was met, though, with huge resistance by pretty much everyone connected with the game, especially by some of Southampton's existing management team. Maybe the world wasn't ready for a rugby manager in charge of a soccer team but it's doubtful that he could have been as bad as some of the clowns that have been in charge of high profile clubs.
The most common reason used by those who say that a manager must have prior experience as a professional player is that you can't understand the nuances of football tactics unless you've been their in the boot-room and been there out on the pitch. I would challenge this assertion. I think it's lazy thinking. I would argue that there are many students of the game who are extremely well versed in the formations and tactics that can be utilised. It's also true to say that many of the really top managers don't actually get involved in that much detail in relation to training ground routines. Martin O'Neill, for example, has his trusted team of John Robertson and Steve Walford who oversee the bulk of the day to day on-pitch training. The real knack of being that successful manager is to be good at the general managerial skills that would be the same if you were a manager is another sport or perhaps even in an office job.
Learn more about this author, Simon Wright.
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No
On Sunday, November 23, 2008, Markus Babbel was named as manager of German Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart following the sacking of the Armin Veh. It is an appointment that came as something of a shock since Babbel had only retired as a player in 2007 and has only a season as assistant manager at the club to boast as management experience.
At 36 years of age, Babbel is among the youngest managers at the upper echelon of European (and indeed world) football. However, having garnered playing experience at the highest level at Bayern Munich, Hamburg, Liverpool and Stuttgart, as well as on the international stage with Germany, with whom he won a European Championship in 1996, there is no one who will argue against the his pedigree as a player.
So why would the 2007-2008 Bundesliga Champions hire a person of such inexperience as their new manager? It is true that it is gamble on the part of the Stuttgart Board of Directors, but there is nothing strange in the appointment of a former player as manager, nor in the idea that they can bring success.
Chris Coleman, the former Welsh international and Fulham player, was appointed as manager of the Cottagers in October 2003, at the tender age of just 32 years old. He remains the youngest Premier League manager in history. Just like Babbel, he had only retired as a player the previous year, though the car crash in 2001 that had effectively forced his retirement had kept him off the field for a year before that again.
Coleman had just joined the club's coaching staff in 2002, but following the departure of Jean Tigana, the Mali-born former French international and Lyon and Monaco manager, was named as manager. What followed was the most successful period in Fulham's recent history. Coleman, who had captained the club to promotion from Division Two to Division One in 1999 before the fateful car crash denied him his place in the team that won promotion into the Premiership in 2001, guided the London club to their highest Premiership position at the end of his first full season in charge in 2004 (9th).
Gordon Strachan is another example of a successful former player appointment, though strictly speaking he was a player appointment. The Scot signed for Coventry City having already earned a reputation as one of the most exciting midfielders in British football after lengthy stints at Manchester United and Leeds United, winning the last ever First Division title with the latter in 1992. He was already older than Babbel and Coleman when he arrived as a player in 1995, but in November 1996 he was appointed player-manager with Ron Atkinson's elevation to Director of Football.
Strachan saved the club from relegation (though not without a hefty share of luck on the final day of his first season) but, having retired as a player at the age of 40 at the end of that season, he went on to take the club to 11th place in the Premiership the following year. He maintained Coventry's Premiership status until 2001, ending the club's 34-year stay in England's top division. While he failed to bring any silverware to the club, his achievement in staving off relegation at a club that was a financial lightweight compared to Manchester United and Arsenal was no mean feat. His worth has been proven since then, bringing Southampton to an FA Cup final and guiding Celtic to three consecutive SPL titles and to the Champions League knock-out stages for two seasons in a row - a first for any Scottish club.
There are, of course, plenty more examples of former players taking the reigns with little or no managerial experience, and the list of successes (relative or otherwise) and failures are, I expect, fairly evenly spread.
The point that I am making however, is that it does not matter in the slightest whether a manager has years of experience behind him when he takes the hot seat or if he's just hung up his boots. Sir Alex Ferguson, universally regarded as one of the greatest managers in British football history, needed four years before he won his first silverware at Manchester United - it coming after calls by supporters, journalists and pundits for his sacking in 1989; one banner at Old Trafford even read: "Three years of excuses and it's still crap. Ta ra Fergie". And yet, years earlier, he had guided Scottish club Aberdeen to an unlikely UEFA Cup Winner's Cup title in 1983, and UEFA Super Cup win in 1984.
Arsene Wenger, Arsenal's longest serving manager and most successful in terms of trophies, had only an obscure eight-year playing career. He only signed his first professional contract in 1978, at the age of 29, and finished his career after just 12 appearances, though he was part of the Ligue 1-winning Strasburg team of 1979. And yet, as a manager, he has lasted 12 seasons in the most competitive football league in the world and is the only non-British manager to win the double (1998 and 2000).
Meanwhile, Sir Bobby Robson failed to bring any titles to England's football sleeping giant, Newcastle United, in his stint there form 1999-2004, despite his extensive managerial experience. Terry Venables, who includes England, Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspurs on his CV, failed to change the fortunes at Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough and Leeds United.
So, neither on-field fame nor on-field obscurity mean anything in football management, and indeed, a high-profile history in management holds as much certainty.
How Markus Babbel succeeds or fails as a manager will be down to his tactical perspective, imagination and guile. It will be down to his ability to motivate and inspire his players, which in turn relies on his own charisma, dressingroom manner and man-management abilities. Over time he'll build experience and learn, but that too offers little guarantee of managerial success.
It's clear then that the appointment of a former player as manager does not necessarily limit their success, though it's as easily argued that neither does it limit their failure.
Learn more about this author, Mark Sheehan.
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