Playing the game Football manager published by SEGA, it is not at all difficult to be the manager of team you want to be, without any problem, any prior managerial experience, any prior language knowledge and any prior coaching badges and most importantly any prior football career and at a relatively young age. But think all that in reality and that would have been more than a distant dream. There’s a certain man, called Andre Villas Boas, the current manager of F.C. Porto who has done all that prior things and is the youngest manager in the Portuguese league, the youngest manager to win a European title.
Born on 17th the October, 1977 not every 16 year old will have a certain name called Sir Bobby Robson moving in the same building he lives. When everyone at that age in his locality and around the world were listening to Pink Floyd this teenager was a bit unhappy.Brayn Robbson who was coaching F.C. Porto that time, he use to leave striker Domingos Paciência too often on the bench. Villas not impressed with the Britons tactic went to his apartment to say the thing. But he was shy. He wrote a letter to Sir Robson. Impressed with his letter the Englishman invited Boas to come over and observe the next couple of Porto games. So impressed by his detailed report he immediately made him the trainee with the young side of FC Porto and an observer to the club. To this Boas recalls as “When Mr. Bobby Robson came to Porto to be a coach in 1994, he moved into my building. I was a small boy, but because I was so interested in football I went to his flat to try to meet him.”
Boas who had an English grandmother and was fluent in English, moved into Lilleshall to take his FA coaching badges where infact he was not allowed to take them as minor.But with Bobby Robson being on your list of recommendation, it will be only few people in world of Football who would not respond to him. He contacted the former head of coach for football excellence Mr. Charles Hughes to get his badges done he also arranged him for Scottish qualifications and get him UEFA C coaching license at the age of 17. To this Boas said “I was the youngest coach there by a mile, but I was so determined to make it that it didn’t bother me.”
With mentor Jose Mourinho at the Bridge
How many people become national coaches at the age of 21? Well this guy became the national coach of British Virgin Islands and appointed him the technical director of the team for 18 months. Though the team only played 2 matches under the FIFA 2002 World Cup Qualifiers, in which they lost both the matches heavily, it was ‘unbelievable experience’ for this young guy. Then with the invaluable experience he returned to the Porto U’19’s. And when in 2003 Hose Moreno took in charge of the club, he knew Andre from his assistant days under Bobby Robson at Porto. And he appointed him to make a department of observation which will scout Porto’s every opposition to detail so that the club players know the opposition in and out ,their strength and their weaknesses. The result: Porto champions of the UEFA Cup and UEFA Champions League. When Jose moved to West London, Boas moved with him in the first team coaching staff. There was a personal DVD for each player, his detailed observations. And that too for the opposition. Result:-the opposition was suffocating against Chelsea who on a 4-3-3 won the Premier League and reached the Champions League semifinal. It would be inappropriate to say that Boas’s “DVD library” was not instrumental in Chelsea’s success. On Mourinho, Boas said “Some managers prefer to concentrate more on fitness or mental, but Jose likes to marry all aspects of coaching. He does a lot of physical and tactical work on the field, but believes that you can also benefit greatly from careful analysis and planning.”
Villas Boas decided to move out of the Special One’s shadow when Mourinho was going to Inter,but it was widely believed that Boas had wanted promotion in the managerial ranks which was denied. But it was Jose’s recommendation for Boas as his “his eyes and ears”, he was appointed the manager of Académica, bottom of the Portuguese league, still seeking a win in October. The club website said about Boas as “The success of Mourinho in all his clubs is closely linked to the work of Villas Boas in his observation and analysis of teams, which has been acknowledged on numerous occasions by Mourinho himself.”
Académica, described by the press as dead, reached a much much respectable 11th position and this coaching prodigy did enough to impress his future employers at Estádio do Dragão and the rest they say is well History.Some of his tremendous achievements as Porto manager at first season are the most The most wins in Europe in one season by a Portuguese club ,The most points in a 30-game Portuguese league season ,The highest number of consecutive wins in the Portuguese league and so on.
For the football pundits he prefers a 4-3-3 formation. But most importantly what next for Boas and what he has done to the world of Football management.
Youngest manager ever to win a European competition
First what he has done? He has certainly removed the old cliché that great players make football coaches or for that matter you need to play professional football at the highest level to manage at the highest level too. He did not play any professional football! Yet he is the poster boy of professional football world of tactics and complexity and where there is certainly more than giving locker room changes. The game is turning more and more professional.
And for Boas, well he is certainly not a manager with one year experience. He is a guy with 15 years of tactical observation and knowledge and had brilliant mentors in Robson and Jose. And for him, we say about the hottest transfer properties, he will be sure one of them.
