By Sportgister Ng
Patience is a virtue, but the football industry thinks otherwise, especially when coaches are involved. Footballers lose form yet remain at their clubs for years, but it is not so with coaches. Every day, football managers get sacked. While the players are given the carrot, the coaches get the stick.
Hiring and firing coaches in football is an ugly trend that must stop. It must stop because there is no clear indication that impatience with coaches is a guarantee for success.
Examples abound of several clubs that fired coaches with reckless abandon in a seemingly unfair manner.
Chelsea football of England are notorious for this act.
In 2010, Luis Felipe Scolari was fired despite leading the club to Premier League in the previous season.
Jose Mourinho had been sacked twice by Chelsea despite successes at the two stints with club.
Antonio Conte was fired by the club despite leading the club to a Premier League title.
Similarly, his successor Mauricio Sarri was also fired despite winning a European title for the club.
Interestingly, One of the Club legends frank Lampard was employed when the club was placed on transfer embargo after breaching the law of signing of underage players.
Despite his inability to strengthen the team,he led the team to a top four finished and domestic cup final,He was subsequently fired the following season after a string of poor results.
Most recently, The most revered German tactician Thomas Tuchel was sacked by club despite leading the team to a six cup finals in eighteen months winning three including a Uefa champion league title.
It is not peculiar to Chelsea alone,it happens in almost all football clubs.
Clubs caught in the web of hiring and firing coaches are of different caliber. The most successful,the less successful,average, small,big and any other adjective you choose.
Many clubs have benefited from being Patient with their managers.
For instance. Alex Ferguson’s first six years at Man utd was debacle even the club was almost relegated at a point.
The club’s patience eventually paid off many years later when he won several laurels for the club including European titles.
Similarly, Jurgen klopp of Liverpool was given enough time to rebuild the team of which he has repaid the club with a European title,three domestic titles including first premier League title in 30 years.
More so, Coaches are humans too and deserve to be treated as one. The psychological effects on these coach is sometimes underestimated.
A former Benfica of Portugal coach was alleged to have cursed the team after leading them to success domestically and in Europe.
He allegedly said ” Not in a hundred years that the club will win a European title”. Since then,it has been more than 50 years and six cup finals but yet to win a European trophy.
Financial implications of hiring and firing of coaches on these clubs is sometimes shocking as they have to pay these fired coaches for a whole year or more of idleness until another club gets their services.
Conclusively ,it is an incontrovertible truth that football clubs cannot totally avoid firing Managers but the coaches should be given enough time to turn things around.
Furthermore, Impatience with coaches doesn’t guarantee a success as most of the incoming managers bring a different tactics that the team might not quickly adapt to.
In a nutshell, hiring and firing of Coaches is an ugly trend in football that must stop forthwith in order not to bring the game to disrepute.
