Who’s That Manager?
In the midst of all that is serious in football; in between arguing who your team should sign and who is the biggest threat to England’s qualification for the World Cup, we should all take a little time and enjoy ourselves. For this purpose I came up with a little game to take your mind to a place with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
The goal of the game is quite easy: identify the managers or, if you cannot, pick one to manage your hypothetical team. In this batch of six there are four average managers, one idiot and one genius. My goal is to deceive you and make you pick the either idiot or an average guy if you cannot identify them so I will use every tool possible except lies. Everything here is true but a lot of information is withheld:
A - He guided two teams to promotion to their top domestic leagues. He has managed several teams in his thirteen year career, and he is currently in charge of his beloved team.(**)
B - He has eight years of experience and has won five trophies in two different leagues. His second club in charge - where he lasted four seasons and won two titles among other trophies - is one of Europe’s most respected clubs. He has managed five clubs in total and is now in charge at one of Europe’s big teams.(****)
C - His coaching career began with back-to-back promotions for his club. He has managed several teams (all of them in his home nation), but his greatest achievement yet has been turning around the fortunes of his current club quite dramatically in just three years. (****)
D - He managed two amateur and two professional clubs in his home nation (winning a little silverware with them) before taking over at a club in a prestigious league. He then came within touching distance of achieving the nearly-impossible with this club. Twice. He is currently unemployed. (***)
E - Since taking up a relatively prestigious job in the mid-eighties, he has taken that club to stardom and won numerous trophies with them. But that was not the only team with which he achieved respectable success. At times in his career his brand of football was attacking and free-flowing while at others it might have been very defensive. He has won his nations’ ‘manager of the year’ many times. (*****)
F - He was under the tutoring of one of the greatest managers of all time before he took charge of a mid-table club in his home nation’s top league. With them he came close to proving himself to be a good manager, but when he made the step up to a top class team, he was a bit less successful. (**)
These are real-life managers and none of them are retired. Their identity will be disclosed sometime tomorrow and, in case you are wondering, the stars next to their names represent how difficult I would find it to identify them.
Knock yourselves out!
- Owner picking the team for the manager? Who is Fergie talking about?
- Vote for the next Manchester United manager
- Newcastle’s Big Sam is a budget manager
- How can Watford improve this summer?
- Lampard and Gerrard can no longer be automatic choices for England
Discussion - 17 Responses
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D is Mourinho isn’t it? That’s as far as my managerial knowledge goes. And I’m not even sure about that one.
F should be Mclaren
Is C Redknap?
The rest i wouldnt have a clue.
Good job mate. Really challenging
E is Ferguson?
My Guess:
A: Kevin Keegen?
B. Fabio Capello?
C. Harry Redknapp
D> Jose
E.SAF?
F.McClaren
C - Steve Coppell
E - Guus Hiddink/Alex Ferguson
F - Steve McClaren
Reading the above i s’pose C is quite likely Harry Redknapp
Assuming that Andrei is misleading us on purpose, SAF (E), Mourinho (D) and Harry (C) are far too easy choices
Although Macca is the only idiot manager I know
D could be Lippi..
Ahmed -
If Andrei is misleading us then its verging on ‘diabolical’… ;D
RAFA BENITEZ?? I dun know hell abt managers.. except Sir Alex Ferguson.. and Jose Mourinho.. And Arsene Wenger..
A can’t be Keegan, unless you mean that Newcastle belong in the championship
Andrei - nooooooo, really?
A) can’t be Kevin Keegan can it? He’s been managing for more than 13 years easy…
Damn you Andrei! You evil genius…
D is Martin Jol?
A - Keegan it is. Spiral, he has begun his career in 1992, but ended it in 2005 (when he retired), that gives him 13 years. And now hes only been at Newcastle for a cople of months; that gives him 13 years and a few weeks of football management career.
B - Nobody got this one. It is Koeman, who is currently in charge at Valencia.
C - Wihout realizing, I gave a descriptio of Harry’s career. But, I was refering to AS Roma’s Luciano Spalletti. When he came at the club, it was in a downward spiral, but he lead them to 11 consecutive victories, and with the help of the Juve scandal, turned them into title contenders.
D - Yep, it is Martin Jol. The “nearly impossible” - was breaking the big fours stronghold on the top four spots.
E - The tough one. Your mind goes to Alex Ferguson, but the answer is, as Spiral mentioned, Guus Hiddink. The team he took to stardom: PSV with which he won titles in three different spells over 20 years and lead to European Cup glory in just his thrid year at the club.
F - Steve McClaren here. The world class manager was Sir Alex Ferguson and Macca was his assistant manager in 1999, before that and a bit after.
Well, hope you had fun!
B and C were apparently the toughest