5 Hardest Jobs in Football

The world of football isn’t all fun and games. Players must abide by strict regimes, including stringent diets and vigorous training sessions, while some believe the job of a football manager is one of the hardest in the world of sport.While outsiders to the beautiful game are quick to point the finger at footballers for earning a fortune for knocking a ball around, avid football supporters are aware of the level of skill it takes to become a top professional. However, do we really know the difficulties faced by all profiles within the game on a daily basis?From coaches to physios, here’s a definitive round-up of the five toughest jobs in football...

#1 Real Madrid Manager

Florentino Perez’s shadow looms heavy over every Real Madrid manager

Carlo Ancelotti’s dismissal as Real boss earlier this year was the club’s eleventh since the turn of the century. The side from the Spanish capital’s sky-high standards have seen the likes of Manuel Pellegrini, José Mourinho and Vicente del Bosque all shown the exit door in the past decade.

Prickly club president Florentino Perez carries a net worth in the region of €2.0 billion and he can therefore afford to inject heaps of cash into Madrid’s transfer kitty. What is expected from the manager as a result is sharp investments, consistent results and a multitude of trophies.

Even if the manager snaps up a big signing, they then have to fit them into a group of egos and take a severe reprimand if the new addition doesn’t deliver. A season without silverware tends to spell the end, while a heavy defeat in El Classico turns the fans against you, making the role of Real manager a treacherous path to tread.

#2 Colin Lewin - Arsenal Physio

Arsenal Head Physiotherapist Colin Lewin is a busy man

Okay, so being involved in any aspect of Arsenal football club would be a dream for most young football fans, but given the Gunners’ laughable catalogue of injuries during recent seasons, being the club’s physio is certainly a job that would keep you on your toes.

Amidst the blistering intensity of the Premier League, the North-London outfit struggle to keep key players fit and even at present are without Alexis Sanchez and Santi Cazorla to name but a couple. The club have seen nearly 2,000 matches missed by injured players in the past eight seasons, more than both Manchester City and Chelsea combined.

As a result, head physiotherapist Colin Lewin and first-team physio Andrew Rolls come under fire from the Arsenal fan-base to get the best players back on the field as soon as possible. Each individual takes varying amounts of time to recover, not to mention that the injuries examined are often complex and involve different stages of treatment.

#3 Jorge Mendes - Football Agent

Mendes (R) has a number of high profile clients, brokering some of the biggest deals in football

Founder of football agency ‘GestiFute’, Jorge Mendes is himself agent to a plethora of famous faces in the sport, boasting such prestigious clients as Cristiano Ronaldo, José Mourinho, David De Gea, Angel Di Maria and Diego Costa.

The 49-year-old ‘super-agent’ accumulated a third consecutive Agent of the Year award back in 2012 and rightfully so – catering for such gargantuan characters in the sport requires expert organisation and a sturdy back-bone. Under Mendes’ stewardship, numerous players have seen their respective careers transformed. It’s not as straightforward as big bucks and working with the best though.

Maintaining satisfaction on both the club and player’s part is incredibly tricky, especially when angling for a big move, while dealing with so many individuals at one time is bound to cause headaches. Younger players, such as Mendes’ prodigious client William Carvalho, will be on the radar of bigger clubs and it is important to ensure they are 100% ready for a new chapter in a career before you aid their next move.

#4 Mike Dean - Referee

Mike Dean has to routinely deal with the Premier League’s worst villians

Standing at the heart of a whirlwind Premier League fixture as the game’s official is no easy task in itself, but Mike Dean’s, to put it plainly, ‘hatred’ from fans of the nation’s biggest clubs just adds another challenging element to the tricky task of refereeing.

Following demotion for his blunders in an iconic clash between Man Utd and Chelsea in 2010, the 47-year-old began to amend his career in the following seasons, but has since seen his job become an awful lot tougher. Dean’s controversial sending off of Gabriel earlier this season prompted more than 100,000 Gooners to sign a petition requesting that Dean would not referee another Arsenal match.

Statistics have been thrown up to prove Dean influences Arsenal defeats, putting his reputation under heavy disrepute and intensifying the focus on his performance next time he officiates one of the Gunners’ games. Dean must now prove the football world wrong, which heightens the pressure he’s under on match-day, to curb his image as one of the game’s most disliked officials.

#5 Chelsea Accountant

Juggling Abramovic’s monetary input into Chelsea is a Herculean task

With the tricky calculations regarding massive player signings just one difficult aspect, the job of Chelsea accountant would be no easy task for the finest mathematician. On top of battling financial fair play to mask the reported £1.04-billion debt the club finds itself in at present, there’s also the burdensome dynamic of paying off a string of managerial casualties.

Rewind a couple of years ago and it was confirmed that Chelsea were paying former boss Roberto Di Matteo in excess of £100,000 per week, even though the Swiss manager was sacked twelve months prior. The present tells a similar tale, with José Mourinho’s recent axing costing the club close to £10-million in compensation.

So, as the main number cruncher at the Bridge, a Chelsea accountant would have to work out a sustainable method of paying off old gaffers, providing the financial impetus to build a competitive squad, meanwhile finding a way to keep ticket prices low enough to entice fans, but high enough to fuel adequate revenue. Phew.