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“I can’t believe you’ve talked me into this” I said, feeling more unimpressed than excited, excitement being the emotion I think the strange little Spanish guy with me was showing. “I know we go back a long way but I’m starting to think you need to get a little help, seriously.” I was already struggling to keep up with him and he seemed to be blissfully unaware that I was talking. “I don’t mind the phone call at four in the morning, or the free flight for that matter, but to be honest, you’re starting to freak me out a bit. You’ve been smiling and kicking your feet around all the way here like some... some.....” The word I was looking for was right there, right on the tip of my tongue but I couldn’t quite get it out. “Can you at least give me some sort of idea of what the hell we’re doing here?”
Koldo Asua halted his proud strut for the first time since I had met him this morning in London, he turned to face me. Despite the age gap between us, he still seemed very in touch with his younger self, he was fun, outgoing and confident. We had met a few years ago, after I had attended a match he was also viewing while I was in Spain on business. The company I worked for thought an evening of local football would be a good way to relax during our free time on the first night there. I wasn’t aware that Koldo worked for the club when we first met. In fact I wasn’t aware of anything much when I drunkenly bumped into him, knocking his paper-work out of his hands, spreading it untidily across the red carpeted floor. I apologised, helped him carry it to a nearby room and offered to buy him a drink as a peace offering. We had gotten on pretty well. He had invited me to watch the youth team play the next day, I assume as a ‘no hard feelings’ gesture and I had taken him up on his invitation. I was watching interestedly and commenting on how I would improve the tactics if I were in charge, much like the average fan would. He seemed quite impressed with my offerings, weather he was or not, I will never know, or so I thought. I had gone on to explain how I had always wanted to be a manager of a football club, but the local Sunday League under 15s team had been as far as I had got career wise, despite gaining a few recognised qualifications. Other commitments had taken over, as they always seem to.
“I’ve found you a job” he said beaming, knowing that he had all the answers and could tell me right now if he wanted to. But he wanted to see me suffer.
“A job… let me get this straight, you’ve dragged me all the way to Spain because you think you have found me a stupid job?”
“Don’t you talk to me like that” he snapped, the quality of his English had always impressed me. “This stupid job, if you get it… how much do you earn per annum at the moment, just out of interest?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not the sort of thing I’m willing to discuss with you, or anyone else as a matter of fact”
“Well I can assure you, within the first two weeks of this new job, you will have earned the amount you usually earn in a year. Maybe more, depending on how much you make now of course.” I stood motionless and stared through him, not really believing what I had just heard. “Second thoughts, you’re right, this probably is a little silly, I can arrange for your flight home as soon as you like, free of course. You go back to your little hole in England and carry on applying for those jobs you haven't been getting.”
“Excuse me?” I blurted out, rather stunned.
“You applied for the Bradford City job, no? Oh, and the Swansea City job too? How did that turn out by the way?” He obviously already knew the answer, though I didn’t know how. I started to think that maybe he was wasting his clubs time and money if I was the one he’d been scouting lately. “You have an ability” he said, “You know it, and from the first, no, wait, second day I met you, I knew it, but you will never get anywhere without connections in the right places. You have never played football at a professional level, you have never been involved with a professional club and you have absolutely no reputation to fall back on.” The words were so factual that it physically hurt to hear them. “That’s where I come in. I admit to you now, the job I have recommended you for is hell, seriously, pure hell. To be brutally honest, you aren’t the first choice, not even the tenth choice. The club is having huge difficulty finding anybody that will take it on. But think of it this way, it will get you started, and should you succeed... who knows where you could end up. I’ve covered your travel expenses because I believe you are capable of doing this and doing it well. Don’t waste my time here, are you in, or out?”
25th November, 2006
I collapsed face down onto the uncomfortable bed in my hotel room. Hell was an understatement if ever there was one.
On the 20th of November I had attended the interview, pathetically stuttered my way through it and somewhat surprisingly ended up with a job offer to be manager at Athletic Club Bilbao, a job offer that I had accepted, paying an unbelievable £11,000 a week! I was grateful for the opportunity, I really was. I was also a little overwhelmed by the scale of it in comparison to what I had been previously applying for, but nothing could have prepared me for these first few days in charge.
A press conference had been called and I faced a room full of expectant local journalists who were hoping to see a big name take his place in the chair. What they got was somebody they had never seen or heard of before, somebody that had to hire a cheap translator so he could even take part in the interview in the first place. When my name was released to the fans as the new Englishman in charge, it was met with anger. A spokesman for the supporters echoed the voice of many in his opinion that there shouldn’t be an inexperienced, unknown, rookie manager in charge of a club with such a grand history.
The few first team players that I had actually heard of all seemed to be deeply upset by my appointment too. Francisco Javier Yeste had even expressed his concerns to the media. He also felt a need to state that I was over confident for thinking the side had any chance of winning my first game in charge, leaving me a tough decision to make. I couldn’t let the players walk all over me like this, so I decided that my well known number ten was to sit out of my first match in charge before I had even been introduced to him or found out who we were playing.
I had been in charge for five days and I was hated.
The board had tried to support me the best they could to be fair to them. They had offered me a £9million transfer budget to bring in new players. However, after looking through the financial details of the club, it was very apparent that the money to fund it simply wasn’t there. In fact our balance appeared to be a few hundred thousand pounds in the red. So I had a transfer budget that could put me several million into debt if I used it, added to the fact that I was only allowed to bid for players who were pro-Basque, limiting my options considerably in the transfer market anyway.
To round it all off, my first game in charge was tomorrow and it was huge. The media, board and supporters seemed to think the club should be achieving a mid-table position this season and we were currently sitting in a horrible looking 18th place. Naturally my first game would just have to be against Real Sociedad wouldn’t it, the fierce rivals of my team, and away from home too.
A bit of game information: Game being played on FM07 on the 7.0.2 patch using the official 7.0.2 database, all English leagues selected, as well as Seria A from Italy and La Liga from Spain, using a large database with no extra players retained. I started unemployed with an automatic reputation and surprisingly the first job offer that came in was for Athletic Club Bilbao rather than someone from the depths of the lower leagues in England like I had expected. My reasons for starting a story are mainly because I have been struggling to find the fun factor in FM lately and was hoping this would help get me back into it. I don’t have any plan for how I will write things up yet, or how often (in terms of in game time) I will update, but I guess I will come up with something as I progress.
26th November, 2006 - Real Sociedad v Athletic Club Bilbao
I’d be lying if I said the nerves weren’t getting the better of me. I hadn’t managed to get much sleep, the anticipation and excitement had made sure of that. Today is my first match in charge of Athletic Club Bilbao and it’s going to be one to remember.
Instead of wasting my time lying in bed, I had forced myself to get up and be constructive. I designed a few training schedules to start work on the moment we got back to Bilbao after our first game. I had also given my scouts some guidance on what sort of player I was looking for should I want to strengthen in the upcoming transfer window.
I made my own way to the venue, trying not to disrupt the normality of the bus ride for the first team regulars. I wanted to be part of it, but the initial reaction of the players regarding my appointment made me think better of it for now.
I knew from the off that I was going to exclude Francisco Javier Yeste from the first team because of his public outbursts. I didn’t really know many of my other first team players though. Joseba Etxeberria was probably the only other player I knew of from watching Spanish football on TV. I decided it would probably be best if I allowed my assistant manager, Vicen Gomez, to select the starting 11 due to his knowledge of the players being far greater than mine at this point in time. He selected Daniel Aranzubia in goal. Unai Exposito, Javier Casas, Luis Prieto and Ander Murillo as the back line. Andoni Iraola, Igor Gabilondo, Javi Martinez and Pablo Orbaiz (captain) would occupy the midfield, leaving Joseba Etxeberria and Aritz Aduriz up front, a simple 4-4-2 shape. I gave him total freedom to do what he thought was best and went to take my place in the stand.
The atmosphere was unbelievable. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I had been to football stadiums in the past, many times, but being part of one of the teams actually playing, it felt so different now.
Before I had fully got used to the atmosphere, everything started happening. The teams came out. The home fans cheered to the announcement of their heroes names across the loud speakers, booing each and every name representing my side. I imagine that the Real Sociedad supporters would have loved my name to be mentioned, giving it a huge cheer, knowing how much grief I had caused their bitter rivals supporters - my clubs supporters - in the week that I had been here. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
Before I knew it, the game was underway. The pitched looked awful, cutting up and far too wet in places for my liking. Both sides passing game suffered almost instantly, with several passes going astray very early on, leading to a clear cut opportunity for Gari Uranga to put Sociedad in front after only 33 seconds. Luckily his shot flew over the bar and into the sarcastic cheers of the supporters behind the goal. Our resulting goal kick found its way all the way through to Aritz Aduriz, he was one on one, but rushed the shot, firing it right at the goalkeeper. 1 minute and 5 seconds into the match, there had already been two glorious opportunities missed, one for either team. The crowd sounded truly wild.
We had been the dominant force for much of the first half hour, and we finally got our reward for it in the 28th minute. A lazy clearance was picked up by Joseba Etxeberria, he threaded a beautiful ball through to Aritz Aduriz, who calmly passed the ball into the back of the net to the goalkeepers right. The whole stadium seemed to suffer a sudden stunned silence, enough to send a chill down your spine. What a feeling.
The glory was soon gone however, Real Sociedad started to pile on the pressure, pressure my defence simply couldn’t cope with. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it was 1-1, Xabi Prieto had thumped the ball past my keeper from the edge of the box and the match was back on, only 3 minutes after we had taken the lead. The stadium erupted back into life. I was furious with the obvious lack of concentration in my team, but tried not to show it.
Half time came and I stayed where I was, pitch side. I wanted my assistant to have full control of the decisions in the dressing room for now, until I had gotten to know some of my players a little better. The team came out for the second half looking fired up, but conceded only 27 seconds into the restart, the goal scored by Gerardo. It was disappointing, to say the least, to concede 2 goals in the way we had, right after scoring ourselves, and right after the start of the second half.
Real Sociedad decided that this was enough, and changed their approach to ultra defensive to protect there 2-1 lead. In truth, it worked. They shut us out totally, making the game boring and uneventful until the 77th minute. Gerardo once again at the centre of the action, this time for all the wrong reasons, over reacting to a challenge and swinging for one of my players earning himself a straight red card.
For the first time in the match I was off my seat and down on the touchline shouting instructions, pushing players forward, motioning to play a more direct style of passing, anything, as long as it was putting pressure on Sociedad’s goal.
We piled it on, relentlessly. The full backs were making heroic runs up and down the touch line, the centre backs were pushing up and working the offside trap perfectly, rendering all of Sociedad’s counter attacks useless. We fought and we fought, deep into injury time.
The ball came across from the right hand side. The pass was meant to be a cross from deep by Unai Exposito, but it had taken a wicked deflection from the covering defender on that side. The ball spun out to the edge of the area, almost dead centre, right to the feet of Joseba Etxeberria. He unleased a right footed powerful shot that seemed to loop over the defence and dip wickedly as it swung towards the left hand side of the goal. It was well out of the goalkeepers reach...
Crack
The exact same sound that was heard at Old Trafford in 2003 when Ruud van Nistelrooy famously smashed his penalty into the crossbar against Arsenal. The ball flew back out of the box to a Real Sociedad player who proceeded to run the ball deep into my half towards the corner flag, just long enough for the referee to call time on the match. We had been denied a point in the dying seconds by the width of a crossbar. I had my head in my hands, most of my players were walking towards the tunnel. Joseba Etxeberria stood around 30 yards from goal with his hands on his hips, his tongue pushing his bottom lip forward, wondering how his shot hadn’t earned our side a draw.
My first game in charge: Real Sociedad 2 v 1 Athletic Club Bilbao
We all left together, the coach ride home was a quiet, defeated one.
I was finally starting to settle in. Things haven’t been going well, but I had gotten to know my staff members and players far better this month, even picking up some extremely basic Spanish from the banter on the training field. The schedules I had set up seemed to be going well, the players seemed to be happy with their routines and there hadn’t been any major injuries yet. I got a sense that they were actually starting to enjoy themselves. Relationships had been smoothed over with everyone in the first team too, which was fantastic. They we’re listening more to my directions, actually, my translator’s directions. There was no sign of the protests that had occurred during the week of my joining the club, things were looking good.
December had been a trying month. There had only been 3 matches played, with the side breaking for Christmas on the 17th and not having another match until the 7th of January. Although I hadn’t been in charge for long, I had been looking forward to this little break ever since I knew it was coming.
The first match of December had taken place on the 2nd, it was to be the first match I had played at our wonderful San Mames stadium. I was told that 40,000 people was the maximum attendance, however I had been reading up on some of the clubs history on wikipedia, they seemed to think the capacity was actually 39,750. I trusted my grounds-man more than I trusted an internet site, but in truth I didn’t really care about the size. I just wanted to hear the noise and be part of it. It was to be a fantastic first home match to experience as well. Host to Real Madrid.
The match ended 1-1, we were lucky. Francisco Javier Yeste was to return to the first team, he had taken his punishment well and looked pleased to be back in the action. In truth it would have been suicidal to leave out one of our better players for my second game in charge considering how the first match had gone. Of course, he had to be the one to put us in front in the 42nd minute, hitting a Beckhamesque freekick right into the top left hand corner. When the ball hit the back of the net, it sounded like each and every one of the 39,975 (it seems my grounds-man was correct) fans that had turned up were all ecstatic, the noise level was phenomenal. The lead lasted to the 59th minute. Ruud van Nistelrooy wasn’t given much time on the ball, but he had quickly turned into space and hit a low drive which was just un-saveable. I’d always been a fan of his, being a Manchester United supporter since I was a kid, he had showed why so many people rate him so highly in this moment of inspiration. 1-1 was a fantastic result really against the team expected to finish 2nd. I was extremely pleased.
The second match of December took place on the 10th in Valencia, our opponents being Levante. It was probably the most boring match I’d ever seen, the play from both teams was extremely poor. The only incident worth noting was what looked like a nasty injury to Laurent Robert, I felt sorry for him, he had only just returned from his previous injury. We dominated possession according to the stats provided to me after the match, but we had failed to make our chances pay. It was disappointing, but a valuable point to pick up for a team struggling in the relegation zone.
The final match of the month was against Zaragoza, we were at home again. Our attendance wasn’t as high as in the Madrid game, but that was to be expected I guess. The opposition wasn’t in the same class bracket and it wasn’t the first game in charge for the new manager. Once again we took the lead in the first half and threw it away in the second. Tiko had scored for us, another freekick, this one had been deflected off the wall, wrong footing the goalkeeper and seeming to cross the line at an impossibly slow speed. Our offside trap that had been so effective in my first 3 games was undone completely by an amazing pass from Diego Milito, putting Ewerthon clean through on goal after he had timed his run perfectly. He left our defenders for dead with his lightning pace. He never looked like he was going to miss. It was a great move and there was nothing we could have done about it.
That was it, the staff and players had a break until early January, I was still without a win to my name but we had managed to pick up 3 points from 4 games. I’m not sure how positive I was about that fact, but it was better than 0 points from 4 games, specially considering the quality of the opposition we had faced this month. We had sunk to bottom of the league, but we had gone 3 matches without defeat.
I used the free time after the 17th of December to fine tune my training ideas, think about the tactical options available to me now I was more aware of my squads abilities and take a look at some of the players my scouts were picking out as potential signings.
I was looking for very cheap players that could come in and give us extra depth, rather than new star players. I was made aware that David Karanka, an aging forward from Real Sporting, would be coming to the end of his contract in June, as would Carlos Merino, a decent looking defensive midfielder from Gimnastic. Everyone else my scouts had found looked too expensive considering the current state of the finances. I decided that I would persevere with my current squad this season and do everything I could to prise Merino and Karanka away from their current owners on free transfers for next season.
December results:
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Athletic Club Bilbao 1 v 1 Real MadridLevante 0 v 0 Athletic Club BilbaoAthletic Club Bilbao 1 v 1 Zaragoza</pre>
I hadn't planned on doing extensive match reports like the first one all the time. I wanted to save longer posts like that for when the situation suited it, I think that is how I will continue to do so for now, but we will see what happens
7th January, 2007 – Athletic Club Bilbao v Deportivo
The first match day since Christmas was here. I was feeling extremely energetic and psyched up, the short spell away from action had really seemed to wet my appetite. Talking of appetite, the lads were extremely quick to point out that I may have been a little bit fatter than I had realised after over eating rather severely during the festive period. Luckily my players didn’t seem to have suffered from similar lapses in discipline, they all looked fit and ready to return to action, revitalised after their 3 week break.
I had begun negotiations with David Karanka and Carlos Merino. I had approached them, asking about considering a bosman ruling transfer, allowing them to leave their current clubs for free in the summer. I wanted to get the transfers finalised as quickly as possible, just to have them out of the way basically. I had offered them wages similar to what they had requested and I was eagerly awaiting their decisions. I approached a couple of other players who also had expiring contracts, but they had immediately been offered new deals with their respective clubs as soon as they had become aware of my sniffing around. I still had my 2 main transfer targets in line though and I was pretty confident that they would choose my club for next season.
The match today was against Deportivo, at the San Mames. I’m really starting to love playing matches here. There seemed to be a lot of empty seats as we approached kick-off though, the announcer confirmed my thoughts towards the end of the game, only 28,898 fans had shown up today.
We deserved better. During the match we had outplayed Deportivo in every single area. We had more possession, more shots on goal, more shots on target, a higher pass completion percentage, the same with crosses, tackles and headers, yet somehow we had only managed a 0-0 draw. Another draw. It was starting to wind me up a little now. We were doing everything right, we just weren’t putting the chances away. To top it off, Andoni Iraola had pulled his hamstring only 10 minutes in, he would be out for around a month. I had been playing him on the right wing and he had been brilliant there. Mikel Danobeitia would be a natural replacement on that side, but it was still a blow to confidence.
On a positive note, the 0-0 result lifted us to 19th, we were off the bottom of the pile again. The teams above us were only there by the odd point also, a couple only by goal difference. If results went our way in an upcoming match, we could potentially make a huge leap to 16th and out of the red zone.
I called Andoni Iraola later that evening (through my translator of course) and told him not to worry about his injury. He apologised, which he didn’t need to do, these things happen. I reassured him that I wouldn’t be playing him until the physios were 100% sure he had fully recovered and there was no chance of re-tweaking it, he still sounded gutted though, poor lad.
14th January, 2007 – Getafe v Athletic Club Bilbao
Talk about a day to forget! Things had seemed to be on the up recently, but everything went to pieces today.
11 minutes in and Josu Sarriegi, one of my first choice centre backs, was sent off after elbowing Getafe’s Sousa in the face. He certainly wouldn’t be getting any wages this week, that’s for sure. It went from bad to worse only 4 minutes later. Before we really had chance to reorganise, we were 1-0 down. Francisco Javier Casquero hit a shot from a ridiculous angle, one that was totally impossible to score from, miss-hit it so terribly that it struck a defender on the 6 yard line and deflected past my stranded goalkeeper, unbelievable.
At half time I didn’t know what the hell had happened. We had somehow managed to get to the break 2-1 up! Tiko had scored a diving header from a corner, and Francisco Javier Yeste couldn’t believe his luck when Luis Garcia (the Getafe goalkeeper) made a right mess of his clearance, slicing it right to him to slot into an empty net. To be honest, I didn’t really know what to say to the lads, I had been preparing a speech about playing deep to prevent Getafe running away with it, and suddenly we were in front and looking good.
The second half started and soon put an end to any positive thoughts we may have had. Guiza went clean through in the 48th minute thanks to sloppy positioning by my defenders, playing it past my helpless goalkeeper to level things up.
Getafe never stopped coming forward from then, they had a huge 56% of the possession, they also managed 12 shots in the second half, 8 of which were on target, 2 of which would go in. Guiza once again went clean through, and beat my poor keeper in exactly the same way he did with his first goal. My team were furious that offside had not been given, but from where I was he looked on by a mile, my left back had played him onside by not pushing forward with the rest of the defensive line. Nelson Cuevas scored the 4th, creating his own chance outside the box and hitting a shot hopefully along the ground, right into the corner, he looked as surprised as anyone that it had gone in.
I gave my team a stern telling off in the dressing room, letting Sarriegi know that he wouldn’t be getting paid for a couple of weeks which seemed to deeply upset him. Good. I slammed the door shut behind me, leaving the players in there on their own with a couple of surprised looking staff members. I completely ignored the press waiting outside and drove home.
January 21st, 2007 – Athletic Club Bilbao v Osasuna
A very wet pitch made this game extremely scrappy, pathetic even. It was one of those games where the likes of Match Of The Day would struggle to find 10 minutes worth of ‘highlights’ to show in the program. Possession was very even, we both managed 5 shots on goal, the difference being that the first of Osasuna’s went in. Poor tracking by my defenders let Josetxo sneak into our box unmarked and head into the net. My goalkeeper was in no-mans-land also, which didn’t help. There really isn’t anything else to say about this extremely dull occasion other than I’m getting totally fed up with the wind and the rain here.
January 24th, 2007 – Celta v Athletic Club Bilbao
We dominated, for eighty minutes we dominated. Then we switched off. We were playing admirably in defence, keeping out the bombardment of shots from the Celta attackers. We kept more of the ball than them and our passing was simply fantastic. The chances we were creating just needed a finish, if any of them went in they would no doubt have been considered for goal of the month for the build up play alone. Then we switched off.
A low cross was fired into the box, and with a huge lack of communication, Ander Murillo had put the ball past his own keeper to give Celta the lead. Everything had happened so quickly, it was just instinct for him to slide in to try and hook the ball over the bar. The keeper, behind him, had already dived to clutch the ball to his chest knowing there wasn’t any imminent danger, but hadn’t shouted loud enough, something we are going to have to improve on in training. Unfortunately for Murillo, his attempted clearance didn’t find its way over the bar, instead it flew into the roof of the net like a missile targeting the nearest cloud. It was a goal that would have been so satisfying for a striker to have scored, it would have looked fantastic on the replays, not to mention the photos on the back pages of tomorrows newspapers.
It all fell apart then. The 85th minute saw us concede again, this time from a penalty for a push on Fernando Baiano by Ustaritz. Pablo Garcia took a deep breath, began his run up, gave the goalkeeper the eyes and slotted it coolly in the opposite direction of his dive. 2 minutes later it was 3-0 and I could feel the sky caving in around me. Another defensive catastrophe that gifted a chance to Canobbio, he didn’t need any encouragement to take it either.
I walked off before the final whistle had blown to wait in the dressing room. The players followed through in dribs and drabs. They were a visual representation of their confidence, in tatters. We were well and truly bottom of the league now, no doubt about that. No amount of shouting would do any good here, they all knew the situation we were in.
I had been in charge for 8 games, we had won none of them, only collecting 4 points along the way. My players needed a miracle to turn this season around, and to be honest, I didn’t think I was the one to guide them through it. I called a meeting with the board of directors first thing in the morning to discuss our future.
Latest Results:
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Athletic Club Bilbao 0 v 0 DeportivoGetafe 4 v 2 Athletic Club BilbaoAthletic Club Bilbao 0 v 1 OsasunaCelta 3 v 0 Athletic Club Bilbao</pre>
“We cross over live now to Bilbao, Dominic, what’s going on over there?” A well dressed man replaced the rather plain looking woman on the screen, it looked like he was standing at the main entrance of the San Mames stadium.
“Hello Natasha. You may very well ask! Athletic Bilbao are seemingly at breaking point this morning. The players and staff arrived back from their away match against Celta in the early hours and were greeted by a large gathering of upset supporters, a few hundred yards from where I am standing. They blocked the path of the coach and threw what appeared to be eggs and flour at the windows, they started rocking it from side to side and shouting aggressively to the passengers. Most of the anger seemed to be aimed at manager Paul Fisher, the Englishman that was appointed here a little over 2 months ago. According to witnesses, the majority of fans were chanting, in English, ‘resign, resign’. Since taking over in November, Fisher has yet to see his side win a game. They are currently sitting in 20th position in La Liga. Reports are suggesting that the police took control of the situation and thankfully nobody was hurt, but it has been confirmed that 4 arrests have...”
I closed the lid on my laptop, cutting the reporter short on his story and I sighed. I was grateful for the internet, mainly because I couldn’t understand much of what was on the TV here, but nearly everywhere I looked, this story was appearing. There was also information about how I was having a meeting with the board of directors at some point during the day. How they had managed to learn about that already I have absolutely no idea. Naturally the first reaction to the reports seemed to be that I was going to hand in my resignation or be sacked.
When I came out of the meeting, there was a huge press gathering waiting for me that I had to fight my way through, flash guns producing a lightning effect around me, the annoying chatter of shutters opening and closing, huge microphones coming over the top of peoples heads and of course, a totally un-understandable amount of questions all being asked at the same time. When we finally got through, I was so relieved to get in the car and hear the door shut behind me. Even then I could see camera lenses pressed up against the glass and peoples mouths moving as if they thought I could still hear them. My driver pulled out and we were away, I leaned back into the seat and relaxed, very happy to be out of that situation.
The meeting had naturally been nothing like what the press had imagined, I had explained my concerns to the board and despite the supporter pressure, they had informed me that I had their full backing. I think the main reason for this was how much trouble they had finding someone daft enough to take the job the last time there was a vacancy, it was just easier to keep me in charge until they found a guaranteed replacement. I made my feelings very clear, should we suffer a defeat in our next match against Sevilla, then I would hand in my resignation and allow someone more competent to take the reigns. The board had reluctantly agreed. The details of the conversation were later made available to the impatient media and I started to prepare for what was likely to be my last game in charge.
This is reminding me of Nightbreed. First time I saw that movie - and I hope I'm not spoiling anything for anyone - when the kid gets shot, about twenty minutes into it, and the camera zooms out from his body into a panorama, I thought to myself Wow, shortest movie ever! Fully expected the credits to run!
Here's hoping you pull this out... or land on your feet somewhere!
Managing to be a Manager 
Linear Mode
