Senior football coaches are unemployed

Enab Baladi – Hani Karzi

Despite the great achievements they have achieved in football, great coaches are absent from the scene. Some of them have been without work for years and spend their lives away from the noise of the “football tournament.” There are some who have turned to another type of activity outside the field of coaching, while others are waiting for decades that will bring them back into the spotlight.

The circumstances that caused the departure of coaches vary, as some of them left their position due to a dispute with the administration over the team’s policy, and others demanded that the fans leave, due to the decline in results.

Most notable absentees

The “Football 365” website reviewed a list of the most prominent senior coaches absent from the football scene with the start of the new season in the major European leagues, some of them due to the end of their work with their clubs last season, and others are still without a new job for quite some time.

Frenchman Zinedine Zidane, the former coach of the Spanish team Real Madrid, tops the list of coaches who have remained without a job most, since his departure from coaching the Royal Club for the second time, in the summer of 2022.

Zidane achieved an achievement with the Royal Club, when he won the Champions League title for three consecutive years, in addition to winning two Spanish League titles, and therefore his record is flawless, and despite that, he is still without a job.

It seems that Zidane is very selective, according to what was reported by the “Football 365” website, as he received several offers to train with Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United and Chelsea, but he rejected those offers, and therefore the possibility of him returning to the world of training weakens, the longer he refuses to return to the bench. .

Massimiliano Allegri was dismissed from his position last May, after Juventus won the Italian Cup against Atalanta, due to “certain behavior during and after the Italian Cup final,” which the club considered inconsistent with Juventus’ values, and behavior that those who represent it should adopt.

However, Allegri remains a great coach who has won six Serie A titles as a manager, along with many other trophies.

The famous German coach, Thomas Tuchel, also became unemployed, after he fell victim to the Harry Kane curse, and failed to achieve any title last season with Bayern Munich.

German Joachim Loew is one of only 21 coaches to have won the World Cup, but that has not allowed him to return to football at the club or national team level yet, after he stepped down in 2021 from his position with the German national team, which he held for 15 years, which is the longest period. To coach with a European national team.

Although Loew entered the circle of interests of many clubs and national teams to assume responsibility for them, he has not yet found a new job.

Gareth Southgate is also still unemployed, as he left coaching the England national team, after losing the final of the European Nations Cup “Euro 2024” to the Spanish national team, by two goals to one, and he has been in charge since 2016, but he failed to win any title with him. The Three Lions team lost two finals in the European Nations Cup.

Despite Southgate’s good knowledge of English football, and the presence of many clubs that need his services, led by Manchester United, which sacked its Dutch coach, Erik Ten Hag, a few days ago, the Red Devils or any other club did not think about contracting with Southgate despite his long experience in the world of coaching. .

Xavi Hernandez, after two and a half years he spent coaching the Catalan club, left his position in Barcelona last summer, after a dispute with the club’s management, despite initially agreeing to continue in the new season, but in the end he was dismissed from his position due to differences in views.

The list of top coaches who are still out of work goes on, and also includes Rafa Benitez, Sergio Conceição, Edin Terzic, Graham Potter, David Moyes and Roger Schmidt.

How do they spend their lives?

While senior coaches are still out of work, many wonder how they spend their time, and what their psychological state is like while they are unemployed.

The British newspaper “The Guardian” interviewed a number of coaches who are still without work, and they said that the plight of the unemployed coach is a strange phenomenon, as it goes from losing the position to loneliness, and the coach often engages in a long, desperate struggle to return to work, and this ordeal may continue until Forever, but it’s always hard, and it usually starts with getting fired from a job.

Mark McGee, who coached many English clubs during the 1990s, including Wolverhampton, Reading, and Leicester City, described his feeling a week after his dismissal from coaching Wolverhampton as “harsh.”

Coach McGee told The Guardian, “I was driving my car along the dual carriageway that passes behind Molineux Stadium, the home of Wolverhampton Football Club, and when I passed the car, there was a match going on. It made me cry. Only a week ago, I was the king of the castle there, and lo and behold.” I’m driving the car, and everything happens in my absence. “It was very touching as I heard the fans chanting for the club while I was away from it.”

“The longer you are gone, the more likely you are to be forgotten in the coaching world,” concluded Coach McGee.

The Guardian added, “This is how former coaches feel after being dismissed and remaining without work, as they suffer from sadness, frustration, and imagination. The continuous obsession around the clock with selecting players and how to improve the team, turns the next morning into walking with the dog and watching television away from the world.” soccer”.

On a mental level, the matter may be worse than that, as the spirit of comradeship with the players and the coach’s continuous work throughout the work week have disappeared, and the coach has entered a stage of shock and depression, as some coaches consider that leaving coaching is like suddenly withdrawing from drugs after a long addiction.

The negatives of a coach remaining without work are not limited to the psychological aspect, but also include the financial aspect, as “The Guardian” said that coaches who did not collect huge sums of money will face problems after their dismissal, as they need to pay the mortgage and feed their families.

Alan Pardew, a veteran English coach, told The Guardian that a coach’s rehabilitation after dismissal consists of three stages. The first is a long vacation or a complete break from football to get away from pressures. Then there is a period of honest reflection, where you ask yourself what… You might do it better next time. Finally, the stage of searching for a team requires effort.

In this context, Stuart McGregor, Managing Director of Football Careers, a company that provides consulting services to clubs and coaches, made three main recommendations for unemployed coaches.

First, the coach must market himself well. Second, he must occupy himself with work that will prove useful, such as visiting clubs, attending matches, and scouting for talent. Third, he must learn how to present himself well to the club management that is requesting to sign him.

My last type of action

At a time when many coaches moved away from the world of coaching, some of them went to work in other matters. The German coach, Jurgen Klopp, left the world of coaching and decided to become a defender of players’ rights.

At the end of last July, Klopp officially announced his retirement from coaching after nine years with Liverpool, and after that he decided to move towards a different kind of work.

The “Flash Soccer” sports website said that the energy drink company “Red Bull” contracted last October with coach Klopp, who will become a consultant to supervise a group of clubs in Leipzig, New York, and Salzburg, starting next January.

Klopp, 57, said he hopes to be a voice for the players in his new role with Red Bull, by highlighting player welfare issues.

Klopp described his new job as “wonderful,” and said that he expects to take on a wide range of responsibilities, including advocating for the care of players, indicating that he will push hard to relieve the match pressure that is exhausting them.

In turn, the British newspaper “The Times” said that coach Zinedine Zidane moved from the world of training to guiding his children.

The Times added that Zidane is working to develop his children’s level of football, as his son Luca guards the Spanish goal for Eibar, and his other son Theo is in the midfield for Real Madrid Castilla.

Zidane’s third son, called Elias, is with the Real Madrid youth team in the left-back position, and in the defense of the France U-19 national team, while his fourth and eldest son, Enzo, was a player for Real Madrid and Alaves, before he decided to retire last September.

On the other hand, some coaches who could not find work in the field of training turned towards analysis, and contracted with some sports media outlets to analyze matches within the leagues in which they were active, and thus they were able to secure a source of income for themselves, and at the same time they remained in the football circle until they returned to the world of training. .

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