RevSportz Comment
If Manolo Marquez needs a sense of how difficult it will be to combine stewardship of a national team with a club side, he need only look at two of the managerial greats. Rinus Michels, the man credited with introducing Total Football to the world, doubled up as coach of both Barcelona and the Netherlands national team in 1974, while Sir Alex Ferguson, then riding high as manager of Aberdeen, had to take charge of Scotland in tragic circumstances in the mid-1980s.
The greatest Scottish manager of them all, Jock Stein – who had led Glasgow Celtic to European Cup glory in 1967 with a squad entirely comprising players born in the city and its suburbs – collapsed and died at Cardiff’s Ninian Park on September 10, 1985, during a World Cup qualifier against Wales. Ferguson, who was part of Big Jock’s coaching staff, took over for the World Cup play-off games against Australia, but the responsibility of overseeing the national side clearly impacted on his work at Aberdeen.
He had led the unfashionable Scottish club to European Cup Winners’ Cup glory against Real Madrid in 1982-83 and then won the Scottish Premier League in back-to-back seasons against the might of Celtic and Rangers. But there would be no league hat-trick as a disastrous run of results between November and January – when Archie Knox was partly in charge with Ferguson focused on the national team – ensured that Celtic would finish six points in front.
There was no joy at the World Cup either, with Scotland losing to Denmark and West Germany before an ill-tempered draw with Uruguay. Soon after, Ferguson would end his 459-game reign at Aberdeen and move south of the border to Manchester United, where he established the sort of dynasty that even the great Stein hadn’t been able to.
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Michels moved to Barcelona after winning Ajax’s first European Cup in the summer of 1971. But when the national team qualified for their first World Cup since 1938, two years later, he was a popular choice to take over a side that comprised several stalwarts from his Ajax teams. The Netherlands cut a swathe through the World Cup in West Germany, thrashing the likes of Argentina and Brazil before meeting their match against the hosts in the final.
The biggest challenge Marquez might face could be accusations of bias, which shadowed Ferguson throughout the Mexico World Cup. Alan Hansen, outstanding at the heart of Liverpool’s defence when they were Europe’s best club side, was controversially left out of the squad, with Ferguson preferring his Aberdeen duo of Alex McLeish and Willie Miller.
With Marquez’s contract with FC Goa running till May 31, 2025, there will be considerable scrutiny of the squads he picks, both in terms of whether his club’s players are in the fray and whether they’re rested at crucial stages of the ISL season. The sterling work he has done in Indian football till date, first with Hyderabad and then in Goa, won’t grant him any immunity from harsh treatment if he gets things wrong. The one thing in the new coach’s favour is the absence of any high-profile qualifying matches, for either the Asian Cup or World Cup, in the months before his Goa contract expires.
Ferguson’s experiences with the national team were enough of a dampener for him never to attempt it again, while the luminaries of today like Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho have also steered clear of coaching national sides. Marcelo Bielsa and Roberto Mancini have been notable exceptions, though the Bielsa honeymoon with Uruguay was given a bit of a reality check at the recent Copa America.
Marquez isn’t in India as a mercenary, and there’s no reason to doubt his commitment to the national team job. But the next 10 months will be his trickiest assignment yet, and there really won’t be guiding lights to follow.
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