retired_venomm

Thanks Amaroq, much appreciated!

retired_venomm

22nd April, 2007 – Athletic Club Bilbao v Levante

If I had the power to pick my next opponents after our recent run of good form, I would have picked Levante. They were suffering a horrible run in the league and found themselves in the horrible bottom spot that my team seemed to occupy for far too long this season. If we could show anything that was even half as good as what we had achieved in the previous couple of weeks, we should be winning this game pretty easily. It is silly to count your chickens, but if there was ever to be a game I expected us to win this year - this was it. My players seemed to be thinking the same thing too.

After only 11 minutes of play we were ahead. We started the move with a freekick deep in our own half, which Ustaritz played forward to Javier Casas on the left side. He looked forward and brought Orbalz into the game, who threaded the ball out wide to Francisco Yeste. He flicked the ball on to Llorente who chipped a lovely weighted pass over the top of their defenders and Aduriz was free. 10 minutes gone and we had already broken their offside trap. He ran into the box from 30 yards out with no defenders anywhere near him, took the ball to the left side of the penalty area and smacked it low and hard to the far post. Their keeper Pablo Cavallero was beaten, and from his look of defeat it was easy to see that this sort of thing was happening on a fairly regular basis at Levante.

To be fair to Levante, they tightened up, and it took us until the 72nd minute to put the result beyond doubt. Their good patch in the game where they weren’t making any mistakes was at an end. A terrible defensive pass from Ze Maria went straight to Aduriz, who took a touch to control it, a touch to knock it out of his feet and a final touch to bury it, beating the keeper in exactly the same way he had with the first goal. It was his tenth of the season.

Nearly straight from the restart we would get another. For the 2nd time in the match we would tear their defence apart and put a man clean through on goal, this time it was Fernando Llorente. He took the ball in his stride, ran towards goal, took it calmly around the goalkeeper and watched on as the defenders trying to get back could only help the ball into the net as they slid towards the goal line in desperation. 3-0, 2 goals in 2 minutes.

We were playing all out attack, creating a quite ridiculous amount of chances. It was our attacking mentality that cost us a concelation goal in the 78th minute. They defended a corner well and hoofed a clearance towards the half way line. Olivier Kapo controlled the ball, rounded Luis Prieto and was away. Daniel Aranzubia rushed out of his goal, only to be nutmegged from the edge of the area by a low shot that looked more hit and hope than well directed. A sarcastic cheer echoed around the stadium as if to say ‘it’s about time you had a shot on goal!’

In the dying moments of the match we extended our lead to 4-1, Etxeberria floated a freekick in from the right hand side of the box, and the ever improving youngster Javi Martinez headed the ball strongly back across the goalkeeper, who had no chance of reaching it tracking back in the other direction.

It was never really in doubt, and we found ourselves in the dizzy heights of 15th place. Our season totally transformed in the space of our last 5 matches, that’s football I guess.

retired_venomm

29th April, 2007 – Athletic Club Bilbao v Real Sociedad

When it came down to it, this match could pretty much seal our fate in the league. Real Sociedad were 3 points and 1 place ahead of us on the table, sitting in 14th. If we could win here today, it would more or less guarantee survival with the bottom 3 all having to play either Real Madrid of Barcelona in their remaining fixtures, poor Levante, in 20th place, had to play both.

Our spectacular recent form helped us really push for a result today. We looked confident and we were very high on morale and momentum. We had more possession, more shots on goal (with an amazing 9 efforts on target, far more than we usually manage), and eventually walked away with a 3-0 victory. Our confidence was sky high, if we had managed this sort of run a few weeks earlier, we could have been playing for a top 10 position right now, which seemed an almost impossible dream when I first arrived.

Our first goal came in the 17th minute, a nice early one to settle the nerves. A freekick was fired into the box by Francisco Yeste (who would get his first Man of the Match award since becoming captain). The goalkeeper came to collect it, but was beaten to the ball by Fernando Llorente’s touch with an outstretched leg. As the goalkeeper fell forwards towards the penalty spot, clutching nothing but thin air where he expected there to be a ball, it dropped down into the right side of the empty 6 yard box and was to be possibly the easiest goal Llorente had ever scored.

Llorente doubled his and our goal tally right on half time. Tiko spread the play wide to Francisco Yeste, who would get his second assist of the match playing a perfect ball in-between 3 defenders leaving Llorente with only the goalkeeper to beat, which he did, effortlessly, low to the goalkeepers right, just creeping inside the post.

Our 3rd goal, from Aritz Aduriz, was a sort of which I have rarely seen. A long throw-in from Pablo Orbaiz landed at his unmarked feet in the penalty area. He had time and space to control it, turn, and play the ball to the far post, all before the goalkeeper really knew what was happening. It was terrible defending, but we weren’t complaining. The match was over and we had another 3 points in the bag.

It was a great feeling to know that we were nearly there. We should be safe, as long as some of the out of form bottom 3 manage to pull off miraculous results against Barcelona and Real Madrid, the top two teams in the division - it didn't seem very likely. Real Madrid incidentally would be our next opponents.

retired_venomm

5th May, 2007 – Real Madrid v Athletic Club Bilbao

I approached this match wanting to do nothing more than defend, and for the most part it worked. There was a worrying moment when Tiko went down in the 64th minute, he had bruised his ribs and looked a bit winded. He was all for carrying on but one of my physios suggested that it would be silly to risk it, knowing that he would want to play in our final league games at home, so I brought him off and replaced him with Ander Murillo, a defender on for a midfielder.

I firmly believe that this decision was what cost us the match. As soon as we started playing 5-4-1 Real Madrid took complete control of the game. My players still managed to hang on admirably though, until the 90th minute when fellow Englishman David Beckham stepped up and scored a spectacular free kick from nearly the exact position of his famous goal for England against Greece. I had to applaud the effort. He had once again shown what he is made of and rescued something for his team that it didn’t look like they were going to get. If it was to be the goal that won the league for Real Madrid, then I was delighted that it had been scored by an Englishman, even more so because he was an ex-Manchester United player.

Sadly, our run of amazingly good form had come to an abrupt end at the hands of far superior opponents. The situation remained the same however, a point should do it, it would really push the fears of relegation far away from this famous club.

retired_venomm

27th May, 2007

We had done it, we had survived! There was to be a celebration waiting for us when we returned home from our final league game against Zaragoza too. We had got the point we needed in our next match, drawing 2-2 with Deportivo, who were also struggling. We got another point against Getafe in our final home match of the season, drawing 1-1, they had already been confirmed relegated and neither teams really had anything to play for and the game showed no passion as a result of this. Our final game of the season was away against Zaragoza earlier today, a game I thought we might actually be able to win, but the players had lost interest. They just wanted the season to be over so we could start again and hopefully do far better than we had this time, finishing in 15th place. As a result of our lack of effort, we were battered by 3 goals to 0 in Zaragoza. In truth, the scoreline could have been far greater in their favour. We had been really poor.

We had failed to win our last game of the season, but yes, when we returned there was a celebration waiting for us in the streets of Bilbao. It was a very different world to return to after experiencing the frightening public protest we received after losing 3-0 away to Celta early on in my reign.

I couldn’t wait to see what the morning newspapers would say! I was going to save every clipping that mentioned our miraculous survival after coming back from the impending doom facing us when I first took charge. It was a wonderful feeling to have achieved something great in my first year in charge. I felt accepted, I felt wanted, I felt like I belonged here and that I was the perfect man for the job. I even felt that I was starting to get the hang of the Spanish language, I could talk to my players almost fluently now! They still used words that I had never heard before but on the whole I could understand them and be part of the conversations without a middle man and it was fantastic. Everything seemed to be slotting into place beautifully.

Little did I know, these feelings were going to change far more quickly than I could ever have imagined…

retired_venomm

1st June, 2007 – Morning

I hurried down the stairs of my hotel room to buy a morning newspaper. Breakfast smelt good, but I really wasn’t in the mood for thinking about food right now. I just wanted to get hold of a newspaper and read the season summary - maybe even allow by ego to inflate a bit reading the achievements I had made as manager. I had bought the papers from the previous couple of days and not found what I was looking for, I guess they just wanted to focus on the initial success stories more than printing up the stats etc, the edition on sale today would be the one I had been waiting for – the one with the big pull out looking back on the events of the season. I paid the guy behind the counter, I’m still not sure how much I am paying for newspapers over here, I wish everything was just in pounds like back home, still, at least I can actually read what’s in the Spanish papers now. Talking of home, I really should be looking for a place of my own sometime soon. I can’t live in a hotel forever, though I had given it a damn good try this season!

Instead of going through to the breakfast buffet, I took my newspaper back up to my hotel room, removed the football pullout and started reading the front page while I lay on my unmade bed. It was covered with pictures of the Real Madrid team, totally soaked in either rain or champagne, holding their new trophy up proudly behind a large board stating that they were the champions of 06/07. After studying the picture for a while, wondering if I was actually happy for them or not, I read on. I think I was happy, simply because the goal David Beckham had scored against my side had effectively won them the title. Further down the page, there was a smaller, photoshopped cut-out of a disappointed looking Ronaldinho, right at the bottom. The story explained that he believes Barcelona will be re-crowned champions of Spain next year and Real Madrid were fortunate to win this time around.

I flicked through, skipping a lot of the stories, looking for the page with the season summary on. Eventually I found it, 5 or 6 pages in. It read as follows:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">FINAL LEAGUE TABLE SEASON SUMMARYPos Team P W D L F A GD Pts Winners: Real Madrid Relegated: Recreativo, Getafe, Levante1st Real Madrid 38 24 8 6 63 27 +36 80 Top Goalscorer: 25 - Diego Milito (Zaragoza)2nd Barcelona 38 22 8 8 64 33 +31 74 Most Assists: 11 - Ivan De la Pena (Espanyol)3rd Zaragoza 38 19 12 7 69 41 +28 69 Highest Average Rating: 7.57 - Diego Miliot (Zaragoza)4th Valencia 38 19 9 10 55 34 +21 66 Overachievers: Zaragoza5th Atletico 38 18 10 10 52 40 +12 64 Underperformers: Deportivo6th Sevilla 38 16 11 11 50 47 +3 59 Best Signing: Martin Palermo (Mallorca £1.6m)7th Betis 38 14 16 8 57 48 +9 58 Worst Signing: Mauro Rosales (Sevilla £1.5m)8th Espanyol 38 15 9 14 54 60 -6 549th Celta 38 13 14 11 40 38 +2 53 OTHER WINNERS10th Villarreal 38 15 8 15 51 48 +3 53 Spanish Cup Winners: Mallorca11th Osasuna 38 14 9 15 41 43 -2 51 Spanish Super Cup: Barcelona12th Mallorca 38 12 11 15 46 52 -6 47 13th Racing 38 11 13 14 49 59 -10 46 AWARDS14th Real Sociedad 38 13 7 18 43 55 -12 46 Young Player of the Year: Xisco (Hercules)15th ATHELETIC CLUB BILBAO 38 8 16 14 45 52 -7 40 Player of the Year: Joseba Llorente (Valladolid)16th Gimnastic 38 10 10 18 45 68 -23 40 Goalkeeper of the Year: Santiago Canizares (Valencia)17th Deportivo 38 8 13 17 41 44 -3 37 Player of the Year: Ronaldinho (Barcelona)18th Recreativo 38 6 14 18 40 57 -17 32 Top Goalscorer: Diego Milito (Zaragoza)19th Getafe 38 7 10 21 35 63 -28 31 Manager of the Year: Fabio Capello (Real Madrid)20th Levante 38 4 16 18 32 63 -31 28 Top Spanish Goalscorer: Diego Milito (Zaragoza)</pre>

The only thing that really stood out to me was our teams name, we hadn’t been nominated for any awards this season (I already knew this, we get this sort of information before the newspapers do). In fact the one noticeable thing about Athletic Bilbao here was that there was no information what so ever - which was pretty annoying considering the good work we had done in the last few months.

I eventually found a story about us, which cheered me up somewhat, we had been noticed after all. It was only a little tiny square of information on a sheet that was covered in 19 other little squares, one for each team, giving a brief description of the season they clubs had had. Ours read:

“Athletic Bilbao – After a poor start to the season, manager Mane was sacked and replaced by previously unknown English manager Paul Fisher.” That’s me! I thought, before reading on. “After a poor start, Fisher really put some fire in the belly of his players and they battled their way heroically to an impressive 15th position finish. Our prediction for the club at the start of the season had been 12th. They may be considered as under achievers for their poor league form, but the work put in by their new manager won’t go unnoticed amongst the supporters. Fans at the San Mames will be hoping that Paul Fisher signs a new contract shortly, having only approximately 1 month left to run on his current £11,000pw deal at the club.”

I closed the newspaper thoughtfully, and maybe a little worriedly too. Work had been so hard and busy here in the last few months that I hadn’t even thought of my contract. The offer I had accepted when I joined was a short-term one, stating the I should only expect to be offered a new contract should the team avoid relegation. Well I had done that, in fact it looked almost a certainty that we would avoid relegation at the beginning of May! I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t been offered a new deal. Maybe the timing wasn’t right. Maybe I was about to be offered a new deal that I hadn’t been informed about. Maybe they had a new manager in line ready to install at the club…

I was going to need to get in touch with Chairman Ana Urquijo to find out what was going on here.

retired_venomm

1st June, 2007 – Afternoon

The day hadn’t gone at all like I had expected, the hype of reading the morning newspaper had turned into a worry for my future.

I talked to the secretary, she is usually pretty helpful, but today I was informed that the board were in an important meeting and had asked for all details regarding it to kept private, even from me. What was this? A takeover approach? Interviewing potential candidates for my position? I didn’t know and no matter how many times I asked, the poor secretary wasn’t budging. She informed me however that there was a message waiting for me, which I collected and read on my way back to the car.

It was a transfer offer, for Ander Gago. I hadn’t had to deal with any transfers before, the players I had signed had been straight forward, just a contract offer, no fees involved, and the players that had left the club had all been under the guidance of my assistant managers. I ha left it to their discretion weather or not it was in the interest of the club to hold onto the players they were taking care of in the reserve and youth teams. This one though was my business though, a first team member. I called Ander and brought him in to discuss the matter.

The offer was a small one in fairness, Livorno had proposed a deal of £275,000 for our out of favour right back. We talked for a while about his general happiness. I explained how next season he probably would once again be limited on chances in the first team due to the wealth of players I had in his position. I wanted him to stay, he had proved to be fantastic backup for the team this year when injuries had hurt us, but I wanted him to be happy more than anything else, I want all my squad members to be happy. So after explaining the situation to him I let him know that he was wanted, but if he would like to be playing first team football regularly next season, he might want to consider the transfer offer. He thanked me and by 10pm the deal was done, he was off to Livorno for £275,000. It was sad to see him leave but I was pleased for him, he was going to the first team football he desired and deserved.

By the time the deal had been finalised - it was a surprisingly quick transfer, the board meeting had ended and everyone had already left. I asked the secretary if there was any information yet and she said that the chairman had told me to give him a call later on, he had also left a mobile phone number. I thanked her, handing the appropriate forms across for my chairman to look through in the morning about the transfer of Ander Gago and made my way back to my hotel.


“Ana Urquijo” the voice said, sceptically trying to figure out who was calling.

“Hi, Paul Fisher” I replied in Spanish. “How are things?”

“Very well thankyou, yourself?”

“Okay. Listen, I will get straight to the point. I’m calling about my contract. The deal I have now is an ‘avoid relegation’ one and ends on the 30th of this month. To put it rather bluntly, I was wondering if I should start looking for a new job?”

The man on the other end of the telephone, clearly feeling slightly awkward, cleared his throat and replied in an unreassuring manner. “We had a meeting earlier today to discuss your future, since the club has survived relegation; we are considering appointing a big name manager to take the club on from here. There will be no new deal for you...” I turned and looked deep into the wall I was leaning against and stopped playing with the cord of the phone. "...The best we can offer you at this time is a week by week deal, on your current salary; it won’t be a permanent thing, just something to keep us going until we can find a suitable replacement. You will continue in your role, should you want to, just as you have been in your time here. The same restrictions apply, we will not discuss a new contract at your demand, we won’t accept any requests for stadium expansion or training facility improvement, basically all we want you to do is continue controlling the squad and managing the staff beneath you.”

I closed out the phone call, letting him know that I would think about the offer. Later that night I called to say that I would stay on until they found a suitable replacement, so the structure of the squad wouldn’t become affected and my assistants didn’t have too suddenly stomach new responsibilities.

I didn’t really know what to say. I felt angry, but I understood that the club maybe should be looking for a manager that could attract some big names on reputation alone if it was to move forward. Realistically though, how many big names are out there who are pro-Basque? Not many if my transfer market experience was anything to go by! Anyway, that was the situation and it wasn’t going to change any time soon, so I might as well start getting used to it.

retired_venomm

1st June, 2008 – 1 Year Later

Wow, what a strange year. It had been a very difficult time at Athletic Biblao for me this season what with one thing and another. I hadn’t had my contract renewed at any point but my standing with the board had changed somewhat. At first it got dramatically worse, a job vacancy arrived at Fiorentina, which I had applied for. The supporters didn’t seem to see reason in my applying for other jobs and had reacted angrily stating that I wasn’t focussed on the Athletic Bilbao cause. I wasn’t offered the Fiorentina job and had to go about my business to calming the angry fans down with results. It was the second time that the supporters had reacted majorly against my management here and it was starting to wear a little thin. What exactly is one to do when their contract has expired, no guarantee of getting a new one any time soon and no freedom to make requests to the board as part of their current deal? Clearly the obvious answer is applying for new jobs... not in the eyes of the supporters here though.

Luckily, we had made a terrific start to the season, constantly in the top 10. Our early good form seemed to cheer the fans up and also kept the board from looking for a new manager to take the reigns, not wanting to disrupt the flow. I had brought in my 2 free transfers over the summer and they seemed to be settling in, all was going well.

January came and I once again looked around for players that had expiring contracts. Our current league position had no doubt played a huge part in allowing me to secure the transfer of no less than 6 new signings. David De Paula (Alicante), David Lizoain (Osasuna), Sendoa (Hercules), Inaki Astiz (Osasuna), Aritz Solabarrieta (Atletico Madrid) and Oskitz (Real Sociedad) would all join the club on July 1st. I also released a few un-needed players and sold Endika Zugasti to Udinese for £550,000 and Ion Velez to Geno for £800,000. Both of these players had been only reserve players and not really needed. The cutting of the wage bill and the incoming money from transfer fees was really going about securing our financial future. In the space of a year and a half I had taken our club from being in debt to a secure balance of just over £5million. I had brought in several decent players to strengthen the squad, spending no money doing so and I had let a few players go for reasonable prices. I felt I had done a good job of managing the books here.

We were sitting happily (ecstatically is probably a better word) in 8th position come March 31st. The supporters and the board alike were both astounded and delighted with the progress we had made this season and the board had formally offered me a 3 year contract on £21,000 per week. As much as I had loved my time here, I felt like I had only been kept on because they couldn’t find anyone better during the summer and to be honest, I had had enough. We were doing well, we even reached the semi final of the Spanish Cup, eventually crashing out 3-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid who surprisingly lost in the final to Mallorca - but it wasn't enough to change my mind. I rejected the contract offer.

We could have been playing for a European place going into the last 5 games of the season, but a 4-0 battering by Valencia totally shattered our confidence and we wouldn’t taste victory again after that. It had been a disappointing end to an extremely good season. The final table and annual awards looked like this:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">FINAL LEAGUE TABLE SEASON SUMMARYPos Team P W D L F A GD Pts Winners: Barcelona Relegated: Ciudad Murcia, Albacete, Elche1st Barcelona 38 27 5 6 76 38 +38 86 Top Goalscorer: 25 - Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid)2nd Valencia 38 24 9 5 70 25 +45 81 Most Assists: 14 - Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona)3rd Real Madrid 38 25 6 7 67 30 +37 81 Highest Average Rating: 7.68 - Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona)4th Sevilla 38 18 10 10 52 37 +15 64 Overachievers: Osasuna5th Osasuna 38 18 9 11 49 33 +16 63 Underperformers: Zaragoza6th Atletico 38 18 7 13 40 33 +7 61 Best Signing: Joseba Llorente (Osasuna £4.8m)7th Betis 38 16 11 11 46 41 +5 59 Worst Signing: Andres D'Alessandro (Zaragoza £4.1m)8th Deportivo 38 15 11 12 45 39 +6 569th Real Sociedad 38 15 11 12 43 39 +4 56 OTHER WINNERS10th ATHLETIC CLUB BILBAO 38 14 13 11 54 48 +6 55 Spanish Cup Winners: Mallorca11th Espanyol 38 14 10 14 40 45 -5 52 Spanish Super Cup: Real Madrid12th Villarreal 38 12 14 12 49 47 +2 50 13th Gimnastic 38 14 7 17 39 55 -16 49 AWARDS14th Celta 38 11 11 16 34 38 -4 44 Young Player of the Year: Carreno (Ecija)15th Zaragoza 38 11 7 20 50 64 -14 40 Player of the Year: David Villa (Valencia)16th Mallorca 38 6 15 17 35 56 -21 33 Goalkeeper of the Year: Santiago Canizares (Valencia)17th Racing Santander 38 8 8 22 47 71 -24 32 Player of the Year: Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona)18th Ciudad Murcia 38 7 9 22 22 48 -26 30 Top Goalscorer: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid)19th Albaceta 38 5 15 18 25 53 -28 30 Manager of the Year: Frank Rijkaard (Barcelona)20th Elche 38 2 12 24 20 63 -43 18 Top Spanish Goalscorer: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid)</pre>

So Ronaldinho had been right at the end of last season, Barcelona were to reclaim the league. Once again we hadn’t been nominated for any awards in any categories but the players, staff and the board alike all knew that we had achieved great things this season - 10th was even better than the media expected, who had predicted us to finish 14th after the struggle we had last season.

Today, I had once again been offered a new contract, this time on £25,000 per week. Money wasn’t going to be an issue. I was going to leave the club this summer no matter what happened. I had done my bit here, we had achieved a highly respectable top 10 finish, I had secured the clubs financial future, and we had a few good players coming in for free this summer. To top it all off there had even been an announcement from the board regarding a capacity increase at the San Mames and a training facility upgrade. Things were looking good for Athletic Bilbao, but I wasn’t going to take the club any further. I was pleased to say that I could hand the club over to the next manager in good shape, far better shape than it had been in when I took charge.

retired_venomm

1st July, 2008

The Athletic Bilbao board had made a final contract offer of £29,000 a week yesterday in a last ditch attempt to keep me at the club. I confirmed once again that I wouldn’t be staying and that I would formally announce my resignation today - which I had done around an hour ago. I had had to stay on until today because apparently if I had left yesterday (like I had planned to), the club wouldn’t be able to complete the transfers I had arranged due to the change of the managerial situation. I had agreed to stay on, simply so the club would see the benefit of the new additions. The players, both the new arrivals and the squad I had grown to love were all very aware of what was happening today, it had been going around the media for about a month now, my imminent departure was one of the worst kept secrets in Spanish football this summer.

I left the club for the last time after saying my farewells to everybody. I had no idea who was going to replace me here but the board had reassured me they had a few targets in mind and I was confident they would make the right decision. My friend of many years, Koldo Asua, one of the many scouts here, accompanied me to the airport. I was so grateful for what he had done for me and my career and I felt extremely guilty to be leaving when in his presence. He seemed to understand my wishes though and was as likeable as always. He had even helped me apply for several of the jobs that were available. I was waiting to hear back from Bolton Wanderers - who had a vacancy, the Newcastle job was once again up for grabs (I was quietly hoping I would get this one), even the England job was available but not really a realistic one to apply for, Koldo had talked me into sending one in anyway though saying “you never know” – whatever old chum.

I felt extremely sorry for Steve McClaren, he had guided England all the way to the European Championship semi finals, only to be destroyed by an Italy side who were playing out of their skin, 5-2 the score had been – it was a deserved score line but supporter pressure had forced the FA to get McClaren out. Nothing less than a tournament win seemed to be seen as a successful tournament for English fans these days. However, I have to admit that I also felt this way. With the squad we have, we should be achieving far greater things than we had been in recent years – but I really did feel sorry for him, you get a totally different perspective of things when you have been in a managerial role yourself.

There was a job available here too, Sevilla had a vacancy, but I wasn’t really looking to stay in Spain - I wanted to move back home, I had missed England. A move to Italy hadn’t even entered my mind so I’m not even sure if there were any manager-less clubs there. There were a lot of opportunities around, alot of potential. The one I wanted most of all though was the Newcastle one - I'd have given anything to be the next manager there.

I bid farewell once again to Koldo Asua and boarded my plane - I was pretty confident that I had a friend there and we would be staying in touch. It was extremely emotional to see the city of Bilbao disappearing further and further away from me as we got higher and higher. I felt sad to be leaving, but also slightly relieved. Where I would end up next season was anybodies guess right now, but I had myself a bit of a reputation and some good stats to promote myself. I wasn’t worried about finding new work, I was excited.

retired_venomm

6th July, 2008

The days since I returned to England had been very hectic, nothing at all like the relaxation I had planned for myself. I was surprised to find out that I was quite well known and respected over here, I hadn’t really kept in touch with much of what had been going on in English football, but they had clearly been keeping an eye on Spain. To my astonishment, I had a job offer waiting for me, only 4 days after returning to the country having resigned from my previous job. Getting the applications in a week before I had left really seemed to have paid off for getting me back into work right away.

To my utter amazement, Koldo Asua had been right about nagging me to apply for the position as England manager – it was they who had come in and offered me job as national coach, the goal set naturally being to qualify for the World Cup in 2010. It was a job that I would be honoured to take, I had accepted it instantly, without hesitation, I completed the necessary paper work and was unveiled in front of the press earlier on today. Bookmakers had been running bets on who they thought would be the next England manager and I was stunned to see that I was 2/1 favourite to get the job, next in line was Sam Allardyce at 5/1, currently out of work after having being sacked from Bolton earlier in the month, Paul Jewell was also in the running but most of the odds seem to point towards me being the next man in charge of the nation. They were right too, and I was thrilled.

I gave a press conference this afternoon, trying not to look half as excited as I was – I’m not too sure how well I succeeded though, but the appointment seemed to be a popular one. There had been no outrage from the supports, which made a nice change – I wasn't going to count my chickens though knowing England fans, 1 slight slip up and it's a downward spiral from then on. I discussed my intentions, which were naturally to get the country through the World Cup Qualifiers and see where we can go from there. I was delighted to have one of the worlds best squads at my disposal, we were currently ranked 3rd in the world. The quality here, both in the players and the staff is such an overwhelming step up from the personnel at Athletic Bilbao. They have their restrictions there though, I respect that, and they do extremely well with those restrictions in place, good for them.

The major question that had been asked over and over at my press interview had been about the sort of squad I would intend fielding in the first 3 games of my reign - 3 games we were expected to win pretty convincingly. All 3 were World Cup Qualifiers, the first at home against Azerbaijan, the second away in Kazakhstan and the third was also away, in Switzerland. I said that unless injuries prevent me from doing so, I would be fielding what I considered to be England’s best line up, but I wasn't going to go into details about what I thought that was I knew better than to release this sort of information to the press and have it ripped to shreds with doubts and controversy.

I’d have to wait until September the 3rd for my first game in charge, at Wembley, me! Managing the country at Wembley in my first game in charge, it was like a dream come true. I couldn't care less about not being given the Newcastle job now.

I had a lot of free time on my hands, which I planned to use to watch as many Premiership games as I could - to scout players, finding out who is on form and who isn't. It sounded more like fun and games than hard work to me!