There needs to be a 24/7 Rafa Benitez channel. All Rafa, all the time.
The minute Torres gets substituted, we look at each other and say, if (or rather when) Lyon equalize, they’re going after Rafa’s head because of this substitution. Forget that it may have had nothing to do with the equalizer, but that’ll be a talking point.
At the end of October, Carlos Alberto Parreira was once again appointed the head coach of Bafana Bafana after the Brazilian fled South Africa in April 2008 for personal reasons. I know that some believe that these mercenary coaches are necessary to raise the level of football in developing soccer nations, but I’m not sold.
First, other than a contractual tie to a country, there is often very little incentive for the mercenary coach to truly invest in their new country. When problems arise, check-out can often occur quite quickly.
Second, these mercenaries often get ridiculously large pay packages, but rarely produce better results than their predecessors.
In short, there’s basically a huge financial upside to mercenary coaching and very little downside. That’s a recipe for disaster.
What do you think, Bora Milutinovic, coach of EIGHT national teams?
Just because Michael Jordan was great at basketball, doesn’t mean he’s great at baseball. Just because Arnold Schwarzenegger was a great (and we use that term loosely) actor, doesn’t mean he’s a good governator. Just because Silvio Berlusconi is a great womanizer, doesn’t mean he can run a country or AC Milan for that matter. And just because Maradona is one of football’s all-time greats, doesn’t mean he should be coaching Argentina. We also suspect that he’d be a below average Argentine folk singer.
My counterpoint to G.B.’s Management Under Fire post may not be as eloquent as the original post, but eloquence isn’t always my thing. The thing is, unfortunately, coaches get blamed for everything and get fired after poor runs. But players are often allowed to suck regardless of the fact that they are megastars on fat salaries who are allowed to get drunk and do the robot on Sunday nights while hanging out of the sunroof of a moving vehicle. It’s not just Rafa. And it’s not just the coaches … although some of them are hot garbage. The players need to be blamed as well.
If you love perms or Didier Drogba, you’ll love the Les Éléphants shirt …
Spain is trying to conquer the world again. This time, they might succeed.
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