Steve McClaren - English Manager of the year?
Discussion
Don't think anyone has posted this already.
McClaren's FC Twente have won the Dutch legaue.
"If it was an historic achievement for Twente, who became Dutch champions for the first time since their 1926 success in a previous incarnation
There were many who wondered if Twente might crack under the pressure from Ajax, their pursuers. The 29-times champions have been plundering goals under Martin Jol’s leadership and the news that they were quickly on course for a 4-1 win away to NEC Nijmegen yesterday gave Twente no room for error. They had to win, and it was far more tense than it should have been against a poor NAC.
The home team were reduced to ten men midway through the first half when Csaba Fehér was sent off for a two-footed tackle and Twente took the lead straightaway through Bryan Ruiz, the Costa Rica forward and club-record signing bought by McClaren for about £4.5 million. Shrewd business.
Twente created chance upon chance, but kept spurning them and McClaren became increasingly exasperated. There was a loud bang as he thumped the Perspex dugout. When a television cameraman came too close, McClaren angrily pushed him away.
Blessed relief came in the 74th minute when Miroslav Stoch, the diminutive winger on loan from Chelsea, cut inside and whipped a curling, dipping shot over Jelle ten Rouwelaar, the goalkeeper.
Wild celebrations soon followed among Twente’s 750 travelling fans — and more than 50,000 watching on screens in Enschede. On the touchline, Joop Munsterman, the chairman, wept.
McClaren hugged his Dutch assistants. “Bobby Robson will be pleased,” one said to him. It was the late Robson who advised McClaren to take the Twente job.
“He told me to come here,” McClaren said. “He said, ‘You’ll love it’, and I have.
I hope he is looking down. I know he’d be proud.”
English football can be proud (and who would have thought that possible two years ago?) as McClaren became the first Englishman to win a leading European league since Robson at Porto in 1996.
The Netherlands is certainly thrilled for him. His face was all over the newspapers yesterday morning; it was him the photographers swarmed around before kick-off; his touchline antics kept filling the television screen. Twente’s success in holding off Ajax and PSV Eindhoven is a sporting fairytale.
McClaren’s stock will soar, inevitably bringing job offers. Hamburg and Wolfsburg, the German clubs, are the latest said to be sniffing around and part of him will want to work in a bigger, richer, more prestigious league but it will have to be an enticing opportunity to tempt him now that Twente will go straight into next season’s Champions League group phase. “For once I just want to enjoy the present,” McClaren said.
He turns 49 today and has plenty to celebrate. “A lot of people said I’ve been in rehab coming here,” he said. “I’ve never had a drink problem but I may have after the next few days.”
With that, he departed on the two-hour journey back to Enschede, where a giant street party was already in full swing.
“One Steve McClaren,” they sang — and will be doing so for days.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/eu...
English manager of the year?
McClaren's FC Twente have won the Dutch legaue.
"If it was an historic achievement for Twente, who became Dutch champions for the first time since their 1926 success in a previous incarnation
There were many who wondered if Twente might crack under the pressure from Ajax, their pursuers. The 29-times champions have been plundering goals under Martin Jol’s leadership and the news that they were quickly on course for a 4-1 win away to NEC Nijmegen yesterday gave Twente no room for error. They had to win, and it was far more tense than it should have been against a poor NAC.
The home team were reduced to ten men midway through the first half when Csaba Fehér was sent off for a two-footed tackle and Twente took the lead straightaway through Bryan Ruiz, the Costa Rica forward and club-record signing bought by McClaren for about £4.5 million. Shrewd business.
Twente created chance upon chance, but kept spurning them and McClaren became increasingly exasperated. There was a loud bang as he thumped the Perspex dugout. When a television cameraman came too close, McClaren angrily pushed him away.
Blessed relief came in the 74th minute when Miroslav Stoch, the diminutive winger on loan from Chelsea, cut inside and whipped a curling, dipping shot over Jelle ten Rouwelaar, the goalkeeper.
Wild celebrations soon followed among Twente’s 750 travelling fans — and more than 50,000 watching on screens in Enschede. On the touchline, Joop Munsterman, the chairman, wept.
McClaren hugged his Dutch assistants. “Bobby Robson will be pleased,” one said to him. It was the late Robson who advised McClaren to take the Twente job.
“He told me to come here,” McClaren said. “He said, ‘You’ll love it’, and I have.
I hope he is looking down. I know he’d be proud.”
English football can be proud (and who would have thought that possible two years ago?) as McClaren became the first Englishman to win a leading European league since Robson at Porto in 1996.
The Netherlands is certainly thrilled for him. His face was all over the newspapers yesterday morning; it was him the photographers swarmed around before kick-off; his touchline antics kept filling the television screen. Twente’s success in holding off Ajax and PSV Eindhoven is a sporting fairytale.
McClaren’s stock will soar, inevitably bringing job offers. Hamburg and Wolfsburg, the German clubs, are the latest said to be sniffing around and part of him will want to work in a bigger, richer, more prestigious league but it will have to be an enticing opportunity to tempt him now that Twente will go straight into next season’s Champions League group phase. “For once I just want to enjoy the present,” McClaren said.
He turns 49 today and has plenty to celebrate. “A lot of people said I’ve been in rehab coming here,” he said. “I’ve never had a drink problem but I may have after the next few days.”
With that, he departed on the two-hour journey back to Enschede, where a giant street party was already in full swing.
“One Steve McClaren,” they sang — and will be doing so for days.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/eu...
English manager of the year?
Gassing Station | Sports | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff