Luis Felipe Scolari News Archives

Last season the manager sack race got a bit ridiculous with many managers under severe pressure and some getting fired despite being backed in the transfer window and a few dismissed without being given a full season to show what they could do at the club.

New owners and heightened expectations (both a product of more money pouring into football) make it more likely for a manager to be fired - which is why the likes of Ferguson and Wenger are rare exceptions.

The 08/09 season will see a few managers get sacked before May 09 and many others come under pressure (we’re seeing it start right now with Curbs, Ince, Hughes, Hodgson and Moyes already under speculation). To paint an accurate picture (and part of our season preview) we’ve rated the 20 Premier League managers on how likely they are to get the sack this season.

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It’s been a good month for Chelsea and Luiz Felipe Scolari. 

The new manager of the Blues has overseen a successful preseason campaign including a morale-boosting 19 goals in 5 matches, while off the pitch Felipao has brought in Deco as the club’s second signing of the summer behind Jose Bosingwa, whilst also seemingly retaining the services of Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba for another season at least.

Many fans and pundits will now have the Blues down as the most likely challengers to end Manchester United’s domestic and European reigns in the coming season. All things told, it’s been a pretty perfect start to life in the dugout at the Bridge for ‘Big Phil’.

However, as ever in such apparently perfect conditions, there is an issue that will be giving Scolari some concern in the lead-up to Chelsea’s opener at home to Portsmouth in 10 days time. With the announcement on Monday that Didier Drogba will miss the beginning of the season, it leaves the manager with something of a striker crisis for the game against the FA Cup holders.

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Scolari made a great first impression…

You have to give credit where credit is due. Luiz Felipe Scolari was absolutely brilliant in his first press conference as Chelsea manager last week. Not only was he friendly, charming and humorous, he also conducted the whole thing in English.

He certainly responded in the best way possible to those who have labelled him as a ‘bit of a mad man’ and said that he wouldn’t be able to communicate because he couldn’t speak the language.

Scolari was very confident without displaying the ‘over the top’ brashness of a Jose Mourinho and was far more passionate and focussed than the last incumbent, Avram Grant, could ever have hoped to have appeared or been.

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We’ve looked at the players, now it’s time to look at the managers involved at Euro 2008 and find out how they got on:

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We all like a bit of a discussion and debate at the start of the week so I thought I’d take a look at some the talking points from the last week, say what I think about them and ask you to get involved.

I’ll take three things of note from the last seven days and see if we can agree on any of them! I bet we can’t!

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From the outside Chelsea’s efforts to find a new manager over the last few weeks appear to have been conducted in their usual clumsy fashion – with Peter Kenyon running the ship what else did we expect – but there can be no doubt in my opinion that they have landed a top quality replacement for Avram Grant in the shape of Luiz Felipe Scolari. He’s one hell of an improvement isn’t he?!

Scolari’s record with a Portugal side that’s not blessed with any more than four or five top international players in recent tournaments has been magnificent – and before that of course he won the World Cup with a Brazilian team that couldn’t have laced the boots of previous Brazil sides that had failed to land the big one. Club football was previously a successful field for Scolari, who picked up all of the major domestic prizes and the Copa Libertadores (twice) with two different Brazilian clubs.

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Chelsea have named their new manager - Portugal boss Luiz Felipe Scolari. Scolari will take over at Stamford Bridge on 1 July.

Congratulations Chelsea fans - regardless of where one stood on Avram Grant’s impact on Chelsea’s performances last season, at least everyone can agree that Scolari has excellent managerial pedigree and will command the respect of the players in the Chelsea dressing room.

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While Don Fabio has been more or less confirmed as the next England gaffer, has the FA made the right choice or is it another instance of going with the second best. The idea is to dispassionately look at statistics and evaluate the various contenders for the England post.

We look at the club and the country record of Don Fabio, Marcelo Lippi, Jose “Special One” Mourinho, Martin O’Neill, Jurgen Klinsmann, Luis Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink. Just to compare we also have the statistics on Sven “Iceman” Eriksson and Steve “I-can-do-it” McLaren.

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The World Cup is almost over and all eyes are trained towards Berlin, where Italy and France will meet on Sunday.

Stuttgart though, will be preparing for a showdown of it’s own, as Germany and Portugal prepare to slug it out for a 3rd place finish in what promises to be a physical and controversial encounter.

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By this point, very few people consider England as genuine contenders for joining Germany and Italy in the World Cup semi finals. And if that was a stretch, hardly anyone would consider the chance of England being in Berlin as being anything more than wishful thinking.

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My first reaction after the Holland-Portugal game was one of relief and joy - “England are going to the semi final!”.

In the aftermath, however, that glowing optimism has turned into a realistic appraisal of England’s chances of progressing to the semi-final of the 2006 World Cup - and let me tell you, they’re still looking damn good.

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Before the World Cup, it looked as if Portugal would edge out this contest, albeit with some difficulty. But watching van Basten’s Holland in action has been a treat whereas Portugal, despite the talents of Deco, Simao, Ronaldo and Figo look suspect at the back and as Mexico showed, vulnerable to fast counter-attacks.

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