Saturday, June 25, 2011

Andre Villas-Boas - The new breed of Manager ?

One thing struck me about Andre Villas-Boas on Chelsea TV yesterday.  He was well presented,  both in looks and clothes.  He is fluent in English as well as his native Portuguese, add Italian and a dash of Spanish to the mix too.  His family, believe it or not come from royal stock in Portugal. He is young and leads a quiet life with his family.  There is seemingly no lurky past of other girlfriends,  drunk fuelled fights or arrests.  My friend sarcastically commented that "it was all too good to be true", and he must of done something dodgy in the past. No doubt if he has; the UK press will find it !  Its hard to believe such a clean image and background with a great football brain is coming to the Premiership.   Its probably harder to believe for the everyday fan because we pick up the paper daily to read yet another disheartening if not entertaining article on a Premiership player, manager or club.

So is Andre Villas-Boas the real deal ?  All the signs so far are positive.  As a 16 year old he left a dossier of the then Porto team under the door of the late great Bobby Robson.  Robson who was coach at the time, lived in the same apartment block as Villas-Boas, and Robson seeing great potential in the youngster bent some rules to get him on club coaching courses. On completion he then moved up the ranks to scout and writing dossiers on rival teams.  Where Villas-Boas really came to the fore was under Jose Mourinho.  Not only was he chief scout with Mourinho at Porto, but he moved to Chelsea and Inter with the "Special One" too.  Proof of his good  work at Chelsea was famously leaked online (see link below)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/8591763/How-Andre-Villas-Boas-scouting-reports-helped-Chelsea-to-a-3-0-win-over-Newcastle-in-November-2005.html   
Villas-Boas took up the reins at Porto last year and what a final season he had; not only did he win the Portuguese league and Cup double, but he famously won the Europa League in Dublin in May.  Many players and coaches have said that he resembles all that was a good about Robson and Mourinho although he was later to fall out with Jose for unknown reasons.

So Villas-Boas does seem on current form to be the real deal. His record so far does seem impressive for such a young manager, but only time will tell and football as they say is a funny old game.  Comparisons can also be made with Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, and this leads us to ask are we seeing the new breed of manager ? Some will argue that the transition has been happening for the last few seasons, and in the future we will only see more younger Europeans with multi linguistic skills enter the game. 

So are we seeing the end of bad tempered Scots men, managers with the word "Big" before their name (Big Sam, Big Eck, Big Ron), or managers in tracksuits and caps on the sideline ?
Well lets not hope so as these are the guys that bring life and colour to the game, a mix of both will do just fine !

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