Coaching Characters Color the Landscape
England Coach Sven Goran Eriksson’s much-publicized affair with a secretary at the English Football Assn. and his earlier well-documented fling with a Swedish television producer were ancient history by the time he made his third, much more costly, faux pas.
That was in January, when he was foolish enough to journey to Dubai to meet an oil-rich sheik said to be interested in hiring him.
Sad to say for Eriksson, the “sheik” turned out to be an impostor in the employ of an English tabloid newspaper. Eriksson’s admission that he would abandon England for the right opportunity and his incautious gossip about the foibles of David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and the rest of England’s high-priced and high-living players made lurid tabloid headlines for weeks.
The federation, which had turned a more-or-less blind eye to the earlier indiscretions, was not amused and suggested, rather firmly, that Eriksson might want to step down from the $8-million-a-year job it had given him in 2001.
After the World Cup, that is, federation officials were quick to add.
So England has a lame duck Swede with a colorful resume coaching it into the 32-nation, 64-game tournament that begins one week from today.
Strange to say, there is nothing odd about that. In fact, Eriksson fits right in with the cast of offbeat characters who will be directing matters from the wings when their players take the stage, starting June 9, in the 18th edition of soccer’s quadrennial world championship.
Indeed, the 32 World Cup coaches represent 19 nationalities, topped by five Brazilians (if Costa Rica’s Brazilian-born Alexandre Guimaraes is included), four Dutchmen, three Frenchmen and three Croatians.
And the Cup runneth over with oddball coaches.
Take Luiz Felipe Scolari, for instance. “Big Phil,” as he is known, is the gruff, no-nonsense character who coached his native Brazil to the title at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
He parlayed that into a job with Portugal, which he led to the final of Euro 2004, only to lose to upstart Greece. This spring, when England came calling in search of a replacement for Eriksson, Scolari rejected the advances.
He also turned his famous wrath on the Portuguese media, which had criticized him for even talking to the English.
“Your coaches negotiate, am I any different?” he fumed at reporters in Lisbon. The idea “that someone who is born here is a saint and someone born on the other side of the Atlantic is a devil, that doesn’t exist.
“It’s time to stop that clown show. I’m just like anybody else. I’ve got two legs, two arms and a head.”
Colorful language is one thing many of the World Cup coaches have in common. That and some blunt opinions.
Otto Pfister is Togo’s coach. He is also German, but that has not stopped him from dismissing Germany’s dream of winning the Cup as wishful thinking.
“Germany have no chance,” Pfister said last month. “I don’t think they can even get to the final, or even the semifinal.... It’s quite simple: you need skill, and Germany doesn’t have that.”
Pfister also ventured far out on a politically incorrect limb when he forbade his Togo players from talking to Korean reporters, because South Korea is one of Togo’s first-round opponents.
Just to make sure, Pfister also ordered them not to talk to Japanese or Chinese journalists either.
The racist overtones are clear but pale in comparison to the blatant remark recently attributed to Ukraine Coach Oleg Blokhin when he talked about player development in his country’s professional league.
“The more Ukrainians there are playing in the national league, the more examples there are for the young generation,” Blokhin said. “Let them learn from [Ukrainian players] and not some zumba-bumba whom they took off a tree, gave two bananas and now he plays in the Ukrainian league.”
Blokhin, incidentally, was Europe’s player of the year in 1975 and, in perhaps the most bizarre job-coupling among all the World Cup coaches, is also a Communist Party member of Ukraine’s parliament.
Human frailties are everywhere to be seen among the 32 coaches.
Three of them, for instance, have put relatives on their World Cup rosters. In the case of Mexico’s Ricardo Lavolpe, it is his son-in-law, Rafael Garcia, an indifferent player but naturally left-footed. At least that was the reason given for his inclusion.
In the case of Serbia and Montenegro Coach Ilija Petkovic, it was his son, Dusan, a truly mediocre player. The reaction was swift, with journalists and former players calling it “scandalous.”
Croatia Coach Zlatko Kranjcar also named his son to the team, but Niko Kranjcar is a decent midfielder and might have made it no matter who held the coaching reins.
In any case, the elder Kranjcar has other things about which to worry, such as a rumored drinking problem.
“It’s true, I like to drink a glass, even a bottle, of good wine, but only in good company when I’m not working,” he said. “I don’t let it interfere with work.”
The current batch of World Cup coaches vary widely in age. They range from Marco Van Basten of the Netherlands and Juergen Klinsmann of Germany, each 41, to Togo’s Pfister, who is 68.
Seven are in their 40s, 16 are in their 50s and nine are in their 60s. Their average age is 55.
U.S. Coach Bruce Arena is the longest-serving of the group with eight years under his belt.
Among the coaches are quite a few with a top-level soccer pedigree. Four of them already have won the World Cup.
Germany’s Klinsmann won as a player in 1990 and France Coach Raymond Domenech won as an assistant coach in 1998. Scolari did so as coach of Brazil in 2002, and his compatriot, Carlos Alberto Parreira, won the Cup with Brazil in 1994.
It takes more than coaching talent to win, of course. Luck always plays a part.
That might explain the behavior of Spain Coach Luis Aragones, who refuses to allow the color yellow anywhere around his team because he says he believes it brings bad luck. Recently, he ordered star striker Raul to remove a yellow T-shirt when he showed up wearing it to training.
And then there is the good fortune enjoyed by the likes of Poland Coach Pawel Janas. Asked about the pressure World Cup coaches are under as the tournament approaches, Janas, smiled.
“It is not the end of the world,” he told World Soccer magazine. “Seven years ago I overcame lymph gland cancer. Can you imagine a bigger pressure? I have already won the most important battle in my life.”
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Relying on imports
Only 15 of the 32 teams in the World Cup are coached by natives of that country:
*--* Country Coach Age Nationality Angola Luis Olivera Goncalves 45 Angolan Argentina Jose Pekerman 56 Argentine Australia Guus Hiddink 59 Dutch Brazil Carlos Alberto Parreira 63 Brazilian Costa Rica Alexandre Guimaraes 46 Brazilian Croatia Zlatko Kranjcar 49 Croatian Czech Republic Karel Bruckner 66 Czech Ecuador Luis Fernando Suarez 46 Colombian England Sven Goran Eriksson 58 Swedish France Raymond Domenech 54 French Germany Juergen Klinsmann 41 German Ghana Ratomir Dujkovic 54 Serbian Iran Branco Ivankovic 52 Croatian Italy Marcello Lippi 58 Italian Ivory Coast Henri Michel 58 French Japan Zico 53 Brazilian Mexico Ricardo Lavolpe 54 Argentine Netherlands Marco Van Basten 41 Dutch Paraguay Anibal Ruiz 63 Uruguayan Poland Pawel Janas 53 Polish Portugal Luiz Felipe Scolari 57 Brazilian Saudi Arabia Marcos Paqueta 47 Brazilian Serbia and Montenegro Ilija Petkovic 60 Croatian South Korea Dick Advocaat 58 Dutch Spain Luis Aragones 67 Spanish Sweden Lars Lagerback 57 Swedish Switzerland Jakob Kuhn 62 Swiss Togo Otto Pfister 68 German Trinidad and Tobago Leo Beenhakker 64 Dutch Tunisia Roger Lemerre 64 French Ukraine Oleg Blokhin 53 Ukrainian United States Bruce Arena 54 American
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