Your two most recent posts re managers and country of origin, rtf, begs some questions and inspires reflection. Thanks for the efforts. We could also, I suppose, albeit without the apparent national variations observe that the EPL winning and indeed participating managerial lists and indeed Div 1 pre EPL + 2nd tier have very few or no black or ethnic minority representatives. Nor do any women feature. In the EPL list only one Pellegrini, comes from outside Europe, although Pochettino continues to try hard. Some of the list did not enjoy particularly successful playing careers.
The questions raised , to my mind , are twofold : (1) Why has this happened and (2) Would it be better otherwise, past , present or future?
(1) There are three legitimate factors that could be at play choosing a manager a) Nationalistic, Political or Religious preference ; b) Positive discrimination; and c) presumed merit. I say legitimate because there will also have been d) shady---arising from favouritism, personal interest within agents' deals and hubris ( I know best).. We cannot hope to unravel who was appointed to what and why.
(1)(a)But your analysis, rtf, suggests that a) has not often been in play save for Catalans to Barcelona, Catholics to Celtic or when appointing national managers - and a) appointments have not been consistent as playing staffs have globalised . The negative converse similarly i.e aversion to foreign managers has visibly broken down since 1991 and indeed in every European example you cite. The globalisation aspect has rendered previously important considerations such as native speaking to the margins.
(1) (b) Positive discrimination has not been applied for women or ethnic minority and black managers, mainly because there are few such ethics amongst footbal. chairs or Saudi, Thai and Qatari conglomerates or private owners in general. The Barcelona model which lapsed into Pro Messi, anti Messi factions nevertheless had a community aspect and this has maybe served to facilitate the rapid rise of the Barcelona women's team and its Nou camp. The one element of positive discrimination has lain in the occasional appointment of internal candidates, eg the Liverpool boot room
(1) (c) It might be assumed that merit would be the dominant criterion of appointment. That , of course, when judged on experience and an ever diminishing pot of winning experience ( only 11 winning EPL managers in nigh on 30 years) has been rare.
(1) (d) alas may have been the dominant factor- who can say?
(2) There is no one answer to this. Would Emma Hayes, if succeeding Pep Guardiola win the Premier League? I suspect she might just. Could an ethnic minority or black manager win the EPL if succeeding Guardiola eg Kompany or Vieira- again very possibly. Could Allardyce, Hodgson or Dyche or even Southgate have won it with Man City? Not so sure? Or say Bryan Robson in its early days. The answer is perhaps maybe. Of current English managers perhaps Eddie Howe has the best chance of winning the title with Newcastle's Saudi money?
In meandering around the complexity of this I can't find any real evidence to suggest that choosing a manager by nationality would prove fruitful. Spaniards, Italians, French, German or Francophone managers have failed as often as succeeded. Pellegrini, successful at man City and of short duration at West Ham rather underlines the point.
The interesting point remaining could be to ask if anything could have been done by way of positive discrimination, training, quotas, opportunity to swell the pool of qualified English managers, male, female , black or indeed of any protected characteristic to the point where candidates from the pool would have outnumbered others and taken top posts through accrued experience. I suspect the answer is yes. Research would have to join forces with those who have constantly challenged relative English educational under- performance re OECD countries. Maybe the relative lack of graduate entrants to the playing pool diminishes the flow of such graduates to the managerial pool. Maybe we should rethink the role of academies? Maybe with a few more outwardly able and qualified footballers around eg Saka over twenty years they'll break in to club management and take it by storm. Ought also to mention that opportunities have been fewer for English players because of global recruitment and so the pool queuing for coaching careers has similarly reduced or at least appeared less able or experienced. I'm not particularly convinced by that, but some are.
I think in sum I'd incline to argue that there are so many imbalances of wealth, so many questions of ownership and so many threats arising for the entire football pyramid as a result of the EPL that this is just one more. It would appear that the potential for the four to six top English clubs to sod off to a European super league has, amongst national and international outrage has evaporated. I was all for it myself. Only then perhaps might football; reboot and refind its community and establish fair competition. If ever such a context were possible we might just see some exciting male, female or black English managers winning the top leagues and holding the top posts and be much the healthier for the diversity. Meanwhile the pattern you have documented, rtf, is not going to change?!
blimey, that's a good old fashioned in depth AndyL post, and good to see
. i've missed these. i wasn't being particularly nationalistic about it. doesn't bother me. although it does when there's almost a reverse racism to our own managers.
when people like Ange can come into Spurs , not even from a big football nation, and well into his 50's . there's almost this familiarity breeds contempt with English and even British managers.
with 3 losses in a row, some of the gloss might be fading on Ange.
and i'm also tying this in the lack of progression for guys at the lower PL clubs. doing well at those is almost taken to be a marker that you're not suited at top level clubs. Curbs, & BSA.... compared to the short flashy spell of Coyle when he almost instantly gets linked to Arsenal. I agree, Eddie Howe looks at the moment the most likely to break the spell, but mainly due to Saudi money.
Language skills were a possible barrier at one point. our managers didn't go abroad that much , and the ability to converse with a diverse group of players also helped Managers like Mourinho or Wenger even over here.
although it didn't seem to stop Fergie. some might say he struggled enough with English !. and the hire of Quieroz as assistant seemed to help with the Portuguese speakers like Ronaldo or Brazilians like Kleberson/anderson etc.
of course we did have some managers going abroad and doing well mid/late 80's. Bobby Robson and El Tel ( RIP - I see his death was announced today ).
seeing as we're not likely to see Pep or Klopp manage at lower levels here, it is like you say handy to observe those who do drop down a bit. Pellegrini ,you mentioned at West ham. or Rafa at newcastle.
would they have got their big 4 club jobs on the basis of there later lesser club experience. no chance. yet somehow this never seems to sink in & learn the lessons from it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Serie_A_winning_managerslooking at the Serie A list from way back, there's always been a good spread of nations involved.
some amazing back stories i wasn't aware of.
Hungarian manager winning it 3 times with 2 diff clubs in the 1930's. this guy Weisz was Jewish and actually died at Auschwitz.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rp%C3%A1d_WeiszAustrians. English.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lievesleythis guy died aged 37 at the Superga air disaster, having previously survived 2 other air crashes , during War and with Torino youth team.
more Hungarians in the 50's but always intermingled with a decent number of Italians.
the famous Helenio Herrera.
very interesting line in his wiki page.
"
Herrera was arguably the first manager to collect credit for his teams' performances,[2][3] in the process becoming a superstar in the world of football. Up to that time, managers were more marginal figures in a team"
seems crazy now, but i think it's actually wise to reconcile those 2 views. i'm now thinking far too much emphasis is on the manager.
like you said above, if Pep left it in a good state, many people could follow him for a year or 2 and keep it ticking over, a la Joe Fagan.
Fergie really slipped up with Utd. if he'd actually built a boot room and left at a good moment, he could have left a lasting dynasty.
similar with Big sam to Little sam. job goes to internal candidate who doesn't go for continuity, & a bit of evolution over time
but revolution overnight to a different style. crazy when you look back on this. don't think it'd have ever established us fully, as the
money was always going to have to be reined back in, but it could have lasted a bit longer and possibly self-financed itself a bit more.
Southgate is possibly helping to make it easier for English managers. they don't have to be super-human.
failing England team managers of the early 90's seemed reflect badly on the club scene etc. so much so that we went foreign for even that.
i'm always quite conflicted with Southgate. 50/50 straight down the middle. those who rave him up, grate me as much as those that totally shoot him down.
he's had some very easy groups especially at tournaments. beats the sides you should beat but struggles against the tougher opponents, a bit like I.E.
also had a very strong squad of players. especially in an era when neither Italy Germany or Brazil can't seem find a single decent centre forward.
Kane has 60+ England goals. Italy struggle to get anyone into the 20's. Germany rarely struggle with this after such long lines as Seeler, Muller, Rummenigge,
Klinsmann , Voller, Klose/T Muller.......now just no-one. Southgate has done well to get a good environment where players enjoy playing for England , and play up
their club form and don't feel intimidated & wilt under pressure as they so often did.
back to the serie A list. Herrera born in argentina ( classed as french on that list ) the other Herrera, Heriberto, no relation i don't think, actually Paraguayan. imagine the hiring process there back in the 60s !?! .
then more Czech,s Swedes and yugoslavs, with again plenty more home grown ones all the way through. peak era Milan euro domination late 80's/early 90's.
with Sacchi and Cappello of course.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_La_Liga_winning_managersla liga is possibly even more diverse.
english winner as early as 1929/30.
Hungarians, Irish. uruguayans. Helenio Herrera in there with Barca.
more Czech's. austrians, dutch. El Tel making an appearance.
welsh, more Dutch with Beenhakker and Cruyff.
a fair old run of non-Spanish from mid '80's to 2000. largely having to do it with the smaller clubs like Clemente at Bilbao or Irureta with La coruna,
as they not getting much of a chance at the big 2 giants. even a black manager thrown in there with 2 titles for Rijkaard.
no sign of any 30 year run without a Spanish winner. like i say. just bizarre how this isn't even a talking point.
this is exactly the kind of mix we should be seeing on that PL list.
***
late addition.
hearing some of the tributes to El Tel this morning.... you wonder how he got that Barca job. last season at Qpr finished 5th. and had impressed at Palace
as a young coach. they saw the potential and went with it. there was none of this..."well he's won nothing yet". he's at QPR, he's hardly likely to
win anything. all you can do is push a club to a high point FOR THAT CLUB. think of people like Joe Royle when you talk about
over-achievement. take Oldham to a high point in top flight. playing decent football. talked sense . great recruitment. excellent man manager.
goes to Everton.... loved his "Dogs of war" label for his combative midfield terriers for the relegation fight he inherited. summed up the spirit
needed at the time..it ain't going to be pretty. also communicated well that it was'nt something permanent, just something temporary that needed to be
done in bad times. also led Everton the FA cup. and that's the last trophy they won too.
****
even later addition.... blimey this post is going to break all records for length.
to answer part of my own question there.... apparently Bobby Robson recommended Venables for the Barca job. but the point still remains that they were willing to
give him the job just on the basis of "promise" rather than proven record of trophies etc. Robson took the Barca job much later.... late 90's with a young Ronaldo
( brazilian version) as the key player. won various trophies but not the lge itself.
until i saw the vid above, i didn't realise how long they'd gone without a liga title. 73/74 the previous one under Rinus Michels.
no wins til T.V turns in 84/85. then 5 in a row for real madrid...before Cruyff's teams does 4 in a row...starting in 90/91. so, not far off 1 title in a 20 yr period
and El tel not only gets it, but gets it in his first year !
incidentally, if you freeze he vid at 0.10, (if you've not already heard),the pic of the ball boy ( on left) looking up in amazement at Tel being carried shoulder high after a european cup semi final win, is none other than Pep.