52 A Manager's World

Like all Managers, Coach Taylor loved having good players on his team, and this could be said to be one of his best teams he had trained along the years. After the match he had a brief chat with some of his staffs before he got into his car and drove home.

In the academy this year, there were many players in his team which he definitely felt had a good chance of breaking into the first team of a first division team or even be promoted to the first team of Man City if given the chance.

But the most shocking or unexpected person he had slowly discovered so far this season was a hidden gem named Tony Lane who he had managed to snap up for free from a trial.

He was as good as most of the youth players from clubs who would use hundreds of thousands of pounds or even in some cases millions to sign up players that had trained for years with a club and further train him for years to get to that level.

But Tony had never joint any academy during his youth. It was shocking that a talented player like that could have been overlooked for many years.

He had seen many other youth players with great talent but Tony's was just too obvious to have been missed or have been overlooked the previous years.

He had only started training with the academy for just over a month and had improved greatly. He was improving drastically fast and efficiently and could turn out to be an all round player who was very comfortable in getting involved in creating goals or scoring the goals.

Coach Taylor was a realist and could analyse things objectively, he felt that Tony was one of the best talent he had personally trained even if he wasn't yet at the level of the Messi's and the Ronaldo's.

He also felt honoured that he was the one who had given Tony a shot at football at the late age of 18 as he had been the one to see from his movements during the trials that Tony had a strong understanding of football and was doing some little things the other players neglected.

He even felt that if Tony had been at the academy for years like most of the other youths, he could have easily been handed his debut for the first team by now.

And could then had continued to further develop himself by playing in some cup ties or dead rubber matches of the first team where they had nothing to lose. Then with time he would have made his jump to the first team or could have been sent out on loan for him gather first team experiences.

This was how confident he was that Tony had a bright future and could become a first team regular of a team in the premier league even if it wasn't man city.

Coach Taylor also felt that this season if they continued playing consistently like this and Tony continued to develop they could easily win the league. Last season they had come in third in the northern division of the league, with Middlesbrough winning the National Under 18 premier league title.

Coaches had the job of improving there players and guiding them to becoming great footballers, So Coach Taylor had been closely watching the players on his team and he felt Tony still had room for improvement as he was not yet as consistent as he could be but with maturity his performance would also improve and could then stabilize.

Coach Taylor who had been driving his car had now gotten home discarded his thoughts on football for a while as he went into his house and greeted his family.

He chatted with them for a long while before they all had dinner together before he went into his study to put in order somethings concerning the team.

The Manager or Head Coach was a person who had to go into every detail about the team as he prepared and tried to predict on what the team was to do against an opponent and what they were to expect.

He had assistants and other coaches who assisted him in performing his duties but the onus was definitely on the manager. Especially in the first teams when a team was loosing consistently or failed to win trophies for a long period of time, then the manager in most cases would be fired by the board or owner of the club.

In most cases when the team won, the attention or importance given to the manager was only minimal as most of the attention or praise would be given to the players who were on the pitch.

But when it was the opposite or when the team found themselves in a difficult patch, the larger part of the blame would be given to the manager.

This was so in most cases as can be seen in most relegated teams who even before the season had ended would end up firing the manager as they felt he had failed in his duties. That was how important the role a manager could play as they were the star behind the scenes who made the decisions that could possibly make or break the team.

Coach Pep Guardiola once said something that when his team wins it's the work of the players, but when they lost it was his fault as he had not properly done what he could have done in preparing for the match or he had made a mistake.

Most managers did the same, as they tried to take away the pressure from the players giving them an environment to play their game, as they avoided blaming the players.

And that was essentially how most fans saw the game except for those fans that could see and appreciate the effect or philosophy of the manager in the tactics on the teams games.

Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired from his role as the manager of Manchester United after over two decades in charge, the club performance hasn't yet consistently lived up to expectations even after numerous changes in the managerial position.

So that was why a manager was very important to a team and why they had to be properly prepared and worked very hard in preparing and training the teams as everything had to meet up with there standard.

Coach Taylor sat in his study and began writing some of his observations from the match on the players report, he wanted to finish everything he had to do today and rest up properly on Sunday before another week of training resumed.

The youth Head Coaches of the academy wrote and submitted this reports occasionally to the first team manager or to the head of youth development of the players in the club, who would then look into the observations and recommended actions from the Coaches.

He wrote on the players report and when he got to Tony's own he wrote it down and made his observations on his improvements and also suggested a new contract be given to him, before he then moved on to the next player report and continued to fill them out until he was done.

They were definitely other good players in his team but he felt Tony who was amongst those that just recently joined the academy was one of the best.

And after he had seen his performances in training and in matches, he would later try Tony out in both wing positions or as a striker just to see how good he was and improve him and make him a well rounded player.

A player would definitely appear more important in a team when they could play other positions comfortably without taking anything away from the team.

Coach Taylor continued thinking about his team before he went into his bedroom and climbed on to his bed to hug the wonderful warm skin of his wife that was already in her night ware and was preparing to rest for the night.