Blog - The Worst Job In Football

For many professional players, when they do finally hang up their boots, they struggle to move on from the game. They struggle to imagine a life without football. And so, with playing no longer an option, coaching becomes their only viable way of staying involved in the game. However, listening to head coaches in world football and watching the strain of the profession, I sometimes wonder if that passion for the game is not snuffed out very quickly, and sooner rather than later football coaching becomes just another daily grind.   Fact – only one team can win a league title each season. Fact – at least three or four club owners believe their team should win the league title each season. Fact – at least one team, usually two, will be relegated from the league each season. Fact – no club owner or group of fans think their team is poor enough to be relegated.   As this season draws to a close, I've been looking closely at the coaches who are under pressure here at home, as well as in the other big leagues around the world – the men who week-in and week-out have to answer for the 90 minutes for which they are held accountable. Whether on the face of a South African in the PSL, on the visage of a Scotsman in the EPL or the expression of an Argentinian in La Liga, stress looks the same.   David Moyes is a good coach. He must have done what he did with Everton. He is a three-time winner of the League Managers Association Manager of the Year. The job at Manchester United must have been a dream move, one that no doubt filled him with excitement and the feeling that he had reached the pinnacle. Then the games started coming thick and fast and the losses started weighing heavily on the man. Out the league race, out the FA Cup, out the Champions League, out of contention to qualify for the Champions League – the axe had to fall, and in truth it was a mercy killing in my opinion. It was said when Alex Ferguson retired, the next person to take the Man United job would have to be crazy. I think the Man United job must have made Moyes a little crazy. He needed to move on.    Gerardo "Tata" Martino received a dream move to become the manager of Barcelona, arguably one of the greatest club team in world football. It was a chance to coach some of the best footballers on the planet in what was meant to be a 'two team league'. As the season comes to an end, Tata's Barca are third on the league table, has lost the league cup to arch-rivals, Real Madrid, and are out of the Champions League. Barcelona may have been the smile on the face of club football worldwide, but Martino has become the tears in the eyes of the Catalan supporters. Tata has visibly aged this season. He has taken the failure of a globally loved team on his shoulders and he is quite clearly crumbling. His days are numbered.   Roger de Sa, a fantastic young South African coach, earns his dream job: the opportunity to lead Orlando Pirates. He takes them on a fairy-tale journey to the final of the African Champions League and comes close to defeating Africa's club team of the century, Al Ahly, in the final, but fails at the final hurdle. He gets them to two more finals, but once again falters at the last hurdle. By all accounts, he has had a great season, yet decides to leave the team telling Soccer Laduma, "When you wake up in the morning and you can't go to work - it's time to go. If you wake up and there's something in you that says you don't want to go to training, it means there is something drastically wrong." It's a clear sign that the job of coaching football teams can, and often is, soul destroying.   The list goes on. Gordon Igesund at Bafana, who inherited a mess of a team and who has nothing but love and hope for his charges, has practically been hung out to dry. An internal witch-hunt launched with the sole purpose of eradicating him has come to naught except to stir up a hornet's nest within SAFA. It shows the kind of toxic environment that coaches often have to endure in order to follow their passion and realise their dreams.   So as the title winners start being announced and as the heroes of the big clubs begin to get their moment in the sun, spare a thought for all the coaches that finish second, that don't win cups or that fail to qualify for the big tournaments. Spare a thought for the guys who have gone from hero to zero in the space of a season.   Without a doubt, being the head coach of a football team is the worst job in football.    Shapa, Clint