Managerial magic and its effects

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How much difference does a manager make?

Unai Emery: Has transformed matters at Mestalla since his arrival in May.



Well - I guess it all depends on the manager. A dumb thing to saymaybe, but football is a game inhabited by humans, not by abstractions.I've seen quite a few managers this week, having watched four juniorgames at close quarters here in Spain - two of them involving my ownflesh and blood, and I've noticed a few things. Oneof them is that when a game is being watched by a maximum of fiftypeople, it's impossible for the two managers, standing by theirrespective dug-outs, to both shout at the same volume. Since you canhear almost every word they are saying, one of them eventually gives into the other and drops the vocal volume, replacing it with gestures orjust a sullen silence, depending on the score at the time, of course.
This is not always the case in professional games, when the managersare standing in their allotted square metre, the crowd forming a noisybackground behind their heads. You can rarely hear what they're talkingabout, which is just as well. One of the more vocal managers I heardthis week - who was eventually sent off, was so full of sayings andmetaphors that he enriched my Spanish considerably - the best one being"Me cago en mi vida!" (I shit on my life!) as the opposition forwardbroke free from the home defence and shaped to shoot (he scored).
Nevertheless,it struck me as a player and it strikes me now as an observer that themore a manager shouts and gesticulates the more he is indulging indamage limitation, like a teacher who has set up a group task for hispupils, only to find out as the lesson progresses that the groupsdidn't understand a word of what he was talking about, obliging him tothen run around the room patching up the lack of a real game plan.
Isthere a proportional relationship between the game's best managers andtheir lack of dug-out histrionics? Someone should conduct a study intothat one, but of the present-day gurus, José Mourinho and Sir Alex tendto keep it fairly under wraps as the match progresses, as does the newkid on the Spanish block, Valencia's Unai Emery.
Well, he's notexactly a kid at 37, but his four years so far as a manager have beendisproportionately positive, making him the current golden balls ofSpanish football. In a week when world stocks have plummeted, Emery'slocal value soared even higher when Valencia's oft-troubled winger,Joaquín, came out publicly to try and explain why Valencia are nowleague leaders only a few months after looking like relegation fodder.
Joaquín,one of Europe's best traditional wingers on his day, was breast-fed byhis mother up to the age of six, and confesses that it has left himneeding to be loved. You can interpret that one as you wish - since thepsychological damage inflicted by having to wander across to yourmother at half-time when the rest of the team are reaching for theiroranges must have been considerable - but Joaquín didn't feel veryloved by Ronald Koeman, and even after the arrival of Emery in thesummer he seemed to be on his way to Inter or Roma. Now he's happilygliding down the right wing again, with that curious tubby lightness oftouch that he has, like Paul Gascoigne in his Mars Bar days.
Joaquíntold the press last week that Valencia are top because "we've got amanager again', which answers the question posed in the first sentenceof this article. "And this manager doesn't dedicate himself to the artof messing people around and inventing stuff" - this a shot across thebows of Koeman, presumably.
"It's different in thechanging-room now. You breathe a different air. The team's almost thesame, but this year we're just playing football again."
Is it alldown to young Emery? Could be. When John Toshack was in his secondspell as manager at Real Sociedad, Emery was playing in the reserveside as a left-sided midfielder. Toshack liked the look of him andasked the Sociedad B trainer if he thought Emery was ready to step upto the first team. "Dunno' replied the trainer (Salva Iriarte), "but hetalks a good game. He'll probably make a better manager than a player',or words to that effect. Indeed, Emery only played five times forSociedad, making a career of it as a journeyman midfielder in theSecond Division of Spanish life, hanging up his boots at Lorca andbecoming their player-manager at the ripe old age of thirty-two.

Joaquin: This much better since Emery arrived.



In 2006 he went down to Almería, won several press awards as manager ofthe year and brought them up to the top flight quite unexpectedly. Hethen steered them to an even more unexpected 8th position last season,during a campaign in which they only lost sight of the UEFA places inthe last few weeks. Emery'sfurther promotion was inevitable, and the chaos at Valencia was cryingout for a steady hand. Nevertheless, such a pit of vipers might easilyhave proved the wrong choice for such a quiet type, with his rathergoofy expression and lack of public charisma. As Morgan Freeman remarksto another hard-bitten inmate in the "Shawshank Redemption' as theywatch the new prisoners march in through the gates; "I'll give that onea week" - pointing at the gawky Tim Robbins. Robbins lasted muchlonger, of course, as well might Emery if things continue apace.
Thisweekend's 0-1 win at Valladolid, managed by José Luis Mendilibar -another of the up-and-coming triumvirate of Basque managers (the otheris Almeria's Gonzalo Arconada) was good evidence of Valencia's revival.
Under the cosh for most of the match, they still nicked a winwith a goal from the Portuguese midfielder Manuel Fernandes. Looking atthe players who took part in the game, the names of Baraja, Angulo,Albelda, Vicente and Helguera seem significant. Helguera spent most ofhis life at Real Madrid and is no spring chicken, but at the height ofthe club's troubles last season it would almost have been laughable tobelieve that the club would be top in the coming October with thoseplayers still around.
Albelda we all know about, but Baraja andAngulo seem to have been around for ever, whilst Vicente seemed to havereached a point of no return with injuries. He's still not the playerhe was, but is a decent enough stop-gap for David Silva, whilst theyoung left-sided international recovers from a major operation. The oldwarhorse Carlos Marchena was injured for the game, but he's still verymuch alive, of course.
Emery has based his conservativerevolution around three players, David Villa, the aforementioned DavidSilva, and the new revelation of the league, the left-sided JuanmaMata, whose surname means "He kills". He certainly does. With Asier DelHorno back, Mata, Vicente and Silva, the squad has a left flank to beenvied by most.
Villa has stayed, and whilst Valencia are topof the league, it is less likely that he will go to England in thewinter transfer window. If he does, start counting the noughts on thepay cheque. But he's a fantastic player, worthy of all the hype andmore. Quite how Valencia managed to hang on to him this summer amongstall the chaos, the revolving doors and the pressure from Chelsea andReal Madrid - to name just two, is something of a mystery, but younever know - Emery's presence might have had something to do with it.Ask Villa and he might tell us, but nobody's complaining now that theclub didn't cash in.
So Valencia sit atop the league, sharingthe summit with Villarreal, another team with a manager, ManuelPellegrini, who is from the school of the strong silent types. Anyonebrave enough to dispense with the services of one of the world's topplayers (Riquelme) but still keep a modest outfit challenging for LaLiga and marching onwards in the Champions League should be allowed atleast some of the credit. Again, the players speak of him inreverential terms (apart from Riquelme), and appear to always know whatis required of them.
Emery himself was modestly batting awaycomparisons of himself with Rafa Benitez this weekend, due to the factthat this is Valencia's best start since the 2003-2004 season whenLiverpool's current boss was in charge - but Benitez still dividesopinion, despite his track record. At the moment, Emery is on ablemish-free roll.
Another manager with cause to smile is PepGuardiola, who has answered the critics in his unassuming sort of way.The idea that Barça were full of "tiki-taka" but no goals hasbeen swept away by the events of the last fortnight, culminating in a6-1 slaughter of poor Atlético Madrid, who were 3-0 down andpunch-drunk after eight minutes. Agüero cut a forlorn figure, isolatedup front by Atlético's lack of ambition, whilst Messi ran riot. Thingscan change again, of course - but to question Guardiola so prematurely- as many in the Spanish press were doing - was pretty daft.

Aguero slopes off as Atletico are thrashed 6-1 at Barcelona.



Real Madrid were held at home 2-2 by a much-improved Espanyol too,which was another reason for Guardiola to smile. Sporting Gijón wontoo, to get their first points of the season in Mallorca (you read ithere last week), but let's stick with the manager theme. Manypeople accuse footballers of being a bit thick, but one thing in whichthey are experts is human nature. At times the suffocating obligationof being with the same group of people, week in week out, under theintense pressure that professional football engenders, makesfootballers keenly aware of each others' strengths and weaknesses ashuman beings. The group thing usually holds together, but when itimplodes it collapses in spectacular fashion - as witnessed by theevents at Valencia last season.
When he arrived, Unai Emery'severy word and gesture would have been subject to the miniscule andcritical analysis that footballers are very well qualified to make. Thefact that he has come out smelling of roses is evidence indeed thathere is a major new name in Spanish football.