Al-Ahram Weekly | Sports | Coaches should savour the moment

		13 - 19 June 2002 Issue No.590 Sports	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Coaches should savour the moment
Most football coaches have an extra short shelf-life

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Coaches in the World Cup: will they still be around after it's over?

Only one country, led by one coach, will win the 2002 World Cup. According to recent trends, he may not get another chance.
There are 20 teams from the 1998 World Cup returning to the world's largest sporting spectacle. Not one of those teams were relying on the services of the same coach four years ago.
Even the reigning champions, France, are with a new leader in Roger Lemerre. Satisfied with the world title, Aime Jacquet left the job to become the French Football Federation's national technical director after the 1998 World Cup.
Mick McCarthy of the Republic of Ireland has the longest tenure of any of the tournament's 32 coaches, having joined the side in 1996. His troops missed out on qualifying for the 1998 World Cup, narrowly losing out to Belgium in a play- off. But McCarthy went against the trend by staying around long enough to see Ireland through in 2002.
The man ranked behind McCarthy in terms of length of service is Tommy Soderberg of Sweden. After coaching his country's U-21 side, Soderberg took over the full national team in 1997 after Sweden finished third in Group 4 to qualify for this year's World Cup.
Though 31 of these coaches will not lead their country to victory this year, there are currently 203 countries in the world whose flag flies under the FIFA banner, and there will surely be some coaching vacancies come July.
There are four coaches in Korea/Japan that wore a different team colour in France. Leading those names is China coach Bora Milutinovic. The journeyman has taken five different countries to the finals in five successive World Cups. Beginning with Mexico in 1986, Milutinovic then led Costa Rica to their first World Cup appearance in 1990, followed by the United States in 1994 and Nigeria in 1998.
Paraguay's Cesare Maldini was with his native Italy in 1998, while each of the co-hosts also employed a recycled coach. Guus Hiddink, now with South Korea, led Holland to the semi-finals and Japan's Philippe Troussier took South Africa to the finals for the first time in their history four years ago.
There are four additional coaches that left their homeland in pursuit of a managerial job in 2002, most notably Sven Goran Eriksson of England which drew 1-1 with Eriksson's native Sweden in the Group F opener on 2 June.
Also, German Winfried Schaefer is in charge at Cameroon, Colombian Hernan Dario Gomez at Ecuador and Frenchman Bruno Metsu at Senegal.
From the CONCACAF region, two coaches have been heralded as heroes after saving their countries from elimination in the qualification rounds. Alexandre Guimaraes stepped in as Costa Rica's boss just before a play-off with Guatemala in the semi-final qualifying round. The Ticos advanced with a 5-2 win, then proceeded to lead the region in the final round.
Mexico also struggled in their journey until Javier Aguirre replaced Enrique Meza halfway through the final round. The Tricoloures finished with four wins and a draw to overcome a mediocre start and advance to their 12th finals.
Guimaraes and Aguirre may be saviours now, but it will be interesting to see if their exploits prior to the finals will be remembered after the trophy is presented.
In this day and age, there may not be a performance worthy enough to guarantee any coach a second chance.

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