Right back to when I was playing schoolboy football, I had thoughts of one day becoming a coach. It was something that took shape in my plans during those long and arduous periods in rehabilitation from serious injury. Having now had my first brief taste of this new, different, but equally addictive aspect of football, I was left in no doubt that this was how I saw my future.
Before I took the Muangthong job, I’d already started the groundwork into getting my UEFA coaching badges – now I could fully concentrate on completing that process. There are five levels to the European coaching model – Level 1, Level 2, B Licence, A Licence and UEFA Pro Licence, all administered by a country’s National Football Association.
An experienced professional or former pro doesn’t have to do the Level 1 and 2 stage, we can be fast-tracked to the B Licence. This takes nine to twelve months to complete, taking in roughly 120 hours of work, most often at County FA level. Typically, you start dealing with things like the development of possession, transitions of play, movement to create space and other tactical issues. But the school side of it is intensive: there’s a lot of classroom work and background reading. A lot of theory too: football, food and fitness, injury identification, sports science, psychology, in-depth player analysis. We’re also given monitored, observed coaching sessions. If you’re applying for a coaching job in the professional game these days, the B Licence is the minimum standard expected.
The A Licence is serious, sustained hard work and study. The best way of explaining it is that it’s a bit like getting a degree in coaching. It’s a two-year, tailored course, devised specifically for professionals or ambitious football coaches who want to go for the prime jobs in the game. You can only get it by working with your national FA, but once you get it, the A Licence radically increases your prospects. It’s divided into two parts, based around two-week summer sessions, with distance learning and support sessions the rest of the year.
The UEFA Pro Licence is the very top tier, a qualification you need to have if you want to manage a team in either of the two big European competitions. This is a much more intimate pathway, with smaller classes targeted at the unique situations you can expect to come up against as a top-level football manager. There’ll be modules in all sorts of management skills, like handling top-class players, sports psychology and mental preparation, contracts and agents, handling the media, commitments to club sponsors and tours, using the latest technology, analysing opponents’ strengths and weaknesses and different ways of dealing with a player’s problems, on and off the pitch. Like I say, it’s all heavily geared towards the actual day-to-day realities of football club management. To pass, the coach has to prove that he or she is competent in a whole host of areas, including:
•How to plan and evaluate your team’s strategic season programme;
•How to succeed in one key fixture during the season;
•Improving the performance of one key player;
•Improving your own interpersonal skills;
•Building upon your existing coaching skills with specific emphasis.
There’ll be visits to centres of excellence, like Ajax or Juventus, along with regular masterclasses from absolute world leaders in sports management – Carlo Ancelotti, Sir Clive Woodward, Fabio Capello, people of that calibre – and regular assessments, too. Interesting fact, here, fact-lovers: neither Alex Ferguson nor Harry Redknapp holds a UEFA Pro Licence! Not that they would struggle to get one, of course – I just don’t think it was such a big deal having one when they were in their prime.
If there’s a controversy surrounding coaching badges, especially the UEFA Pro, it’s the cost. The same course – admittedly delivered to varying specifications, country to country – can cost as little as €535 in Germany and all the way up to almost £8,000 in England. For me, it’s money well spent and money I can afford to spend. But for someone who hasn’t been in the game for a few years or who missed out on the big TV money or whatever, it could be a real stretch.
I found the whole thing stimulating and challenging in the best possible way, culminating in my Nature vs Nurture thesis. But, as tailored and comprehensive as the various courses and modules are, I do think experience as a former pro gives an ex-player an added advantage – a context, if you like – that the pure theorists and academics don’t have. If you have personally been through the scenarios you’re being schooled in, you can process that experience in a way that is relevant and useful to the players under your charge as a manager. For example, when we did our module on mental health, I was immediately able to relate the case studies back to players I knew and had played with. You recognise some of the individual circumstances and that, in turn, focuses you on what you would do today if one of your players displayed similar signs of depression. Equally, you look at different forms and methods of motivation and apply those theories to the real-life managers you’ve worked under and played for. What was it about X that made you want to run through a brick wall for him? Why did you find Y’s training regime such a chore? How would you freshen things up and keep the squad motivated, energetic and competitive?
One fascinating module was all about in-game psychology, including how different players respond to the unique pressures and circumstances of a big match. A classic recent example (more of which in a mo!) is the way Barcelona threw in the towel at Anfield in 2018’s Champions League semi. I was there to see it and I’ve experienced similar capitulations as a player, so it was interesting looking at the phenomenon of a whole team’s mental collapse from an academic standpoint. This is an area where I’m convinced former players like myself, Frank Lampard, Ole Solskjaer and Stevie Gerrard have a distinct advantage. With all the respect in the world, there is no substitute for actual relevant experience. We have played in the biggest games for the highest stakes – major finals and internationals, all over the world. There is no scenario we haven’t faced. Drawing upon that wealth and variety of experience, from Schoolboy Football all the way to the big European finals gave me, I believe, an edge when it came to my coaching badges – and there’ll never be a player who can come up to me and say: ‘Show us yer medals, Fowler!’
At the end of it all, I walked away as fully qualified UEFA Pro Licence coach and waited for the stampede for my services.