La Liga and the incessant manager merry-go-round

Life can be pretty tough on a manager. Chairman’s attitudes always seem to differ and the situation can be one where a manager is fired from his responsibilities quickly without be given a chance to turn things around, or held onto too long where he’ll slowly have the fans turn on him. If you think English fans are bad in terms of turning on their managers, and chairmen in England bad in terms of their treatment of managers, then you’re wrong. Doug Ellis and the like have nothing on Spain’s chairmen whose decision making skills are odd to say the least. The life expectancy in a job of the Spanish manager is not even something you can really speculate on as unpredictability is rife in Spain. More of a merry-go-round with managers getting on and off constantly than a career, welcome to one of the hardest jobs in football.

One of the major problems in Spain is club politics – Spanish chairmen tend to be fickle and overly-sensitive and willing to fall out with the manager of their club over the slightest thing. Many a manager in Spain has lost his job after falling out with his chairman. Or after falling out with a player’s favoured chairman. A great example of this is of current Spain boss Vicente Del Bosque who was allowed to leave Real Madrid right after a successful league campaign and despite being their most successful manager of the modern era – Del Bosque’s contract was not allowed to run down due to failure – it was due to him falling out with some key players, the likes of Raul and Fernando Hierro included, and thus the chairman took their side. Key men become prodigal sons to chairmen in Spain and they will readily spoil their favoured players. If Raul wants a manager sacked, the manager will be sacked.

Then there’s the lack of patience given to Spanish managers should they get even a few bad results. It’s a miracle that Real Madrid’s Manuel Pellegrini and Villarreal’s Ernesto Valverde are still in jobs given that they’ve dropped points. Real Madrid lost to Sevilla and were knocked out of the Spanish cup by lowly Alcorcon – that’s normally enough for a manager to get sacked in Spain but Pellegrini’s been given the vote of confidence…for now. Then there’s Valverde who’s seen Villarreal make a really poor start of the season but has shockingly lasted 10 games – this is more time given to a new manager than usual in Spain if they make a poor start. If Alex Ferguson had made his start at Manchester United at a Spanish club instead he would not still be there as their most successful manager ever. Racing Santander and Atletico Madrid have already sacked their managers this season; Atletico’s poor start is reminiscent to Villarreal’s but manager Abel Resino was given no second chances as he was dismissed as soon as he could pack his desk and go. Meanwhile Racing, a team that struggle usually anyway and should’ve expected a relegation fight this year, sacked their manager for relegation form despite the fact that it should be a realistic fight for such a small team. There are no second chances in Spanish football.

One popular occurrence on the Spanish managers merry-go-round is the quick advancement of a successful young manager; young, eager managers like Unai Emery and Quique Sanchez Flores excel with a smaller team; getting them promoted and then doing much better than expected with them and a move to a bigger boy of Spanish football follows very quickly. Both of those went to Valencia but it is a quick route to the top in Spain if you simply make a good start to life in the top flight with underdogs. If Phil Brown was in Spain he would’ve been managing someone like Valencia or Atletico Madrid before Hull had their fall from grace last season – wouldn’t that be a disaster!

Any problem at a Spanish club is readily blamed on the manager unless he has enough charisma to charm his way out of the media’s anger. The Spanish football media are like a bunch of over-excited puppies being given new toys and greet every piece of news with the equivalent of fast-wagging tails only to then tear their toys to bits – or pervert the news to make the managers into villains as it is in their case. As a manager in Spain some good form will see you idolised but everyone around you has the tendency to be fickle and a few bad results and you are then public enemy number one. Managing’s a dangerous game in any league, let alone one with the emotion and drama of Spain’s professional leagues.

Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and David Moyes are a few Premiership managers who have long-standing roles as manager of English clubs. This situation will not be found in Spain, nobody will last at a club anywhere near as long as the Premiership men do and they won’t get the chances that these managers have been given to redeem themselves when things have gone wrong. Despite this, you will find plenty of experienced managers in Spain – the difference being that they have managed a different team every year or so and can boast experience with at least 6 or 7 top flight teams on their resume. If you are a manager in Spain you can trust nobody – anyone can turn on you in the blink of an eye and you know that your job will never be truly safe. Club legends like Pep Guardiola at Barcelona may seem like exceptions but be sure that should Guardiola fail to meet Barca’s expectations then Joan Laporta would have no hesitation in finding another man to take the club’s helm despite Guardiola’s legendary status at the club. It’s the nature of the game in Spain and it’s part of what makes it such an exciting footballing nation to watch.