What a surprise, I knew we were going away but he’s booked us into a meeting and a tour of a new potential club. I couldn’t wait; all I could think about was who it could have been? So I decided to do some research. I couldn’t find anything; there was nothing on the internet, nothing in the papers, and nothing about recent sackings. I was baffled to which club I was going to see.

“Last call for all passengers flying on flight ESYLIS097 to Lisboa, please can all passengers proceed to gate 4”

This was our flight, my first chance to impress as a manager awaited me. As our flight left London Luton I was nervous, I’ve never been a good flyer. All I could think about was my future, this happened to take my mind off of the height I was traveling. As a football manager I never usually read the papers but as I was traveling to a new country and I wanted to get a grip of the press. I was shocked to find out that Paulo Bento had been sacked as Sporting manager. He failed to win the Bwin Liga last year. He was all over the sports pages. Headlines read ‘Estádio José Alvalade in upheaval’ as I read further into the article it came to my knowledge that the reason for the termination of his contract was because of his personal relationship with club secretary. There were two full pages with articles on the relationship between the two, but the thing that most caught my eye was the article on who were favorites to replace him. The hot favorite was Sven Goran-Eriksson, and then next came Ruud Gullit and then Michael Laudrup. All three have vast amounts of managerial and playing experience. After putting down the paper, all I could hear was my agent, Paul Warnock tackling an Easy Burger, Sesame seeds and orange wrapping all over lap. By the time he had munched away all his Easy Burger we were almost ready to land.

Paul and I had landed around half an hour ago and we were now at our hotel, just outside of Lisbon. I had to share a room with him but we had no time to settle in we had to be somewhere at 15:00pm. Paul wouldn’t tell me where we were going but I had a hunch we were going to the meeting and tour of the club. Twenty minutes later we arrived at Estádio José Alvalade, the home of Sporting Clube de Portugal. We stepped out the taxi, I couldn’t hide my excitement. Dressed in a new black suit and white shirt, I strolled to the main entrance. A beautiful young lady greeted me at reception, now I can see why Paulo Bento couldn’t help himself. Paul said to her “Good afternoon, im here with Tom Varney to see Chairman Filipe Soares Franco ”this stunningly attractive lady replied in a sexy Portuguese accent “One moment sir, I will go and get him”

A few minutes later a tall man came walking from the long hallway, “Why hello sir! You must be Mr. Varney” I replied “Yes, yes sir I am, thank you for welcoming me to your country I have been very impressed with it since I arrived this morning.” He shook my hand fiercely, my young fingers crippled in his old matured hands. I felt like such a weakling, what a bad first impression.

We then went on to have a tour of the Estádio José Alvalade Stadium; I was very impressed inside a modern, slick, work environment, and on the outside a 50,440 all-seater stadium with build in under-floor heating system in place. The attached training ground had good facilities accompanied by youth academy. None of the players were around so they had no idea that I was here, I felt a warm feeling about this place, even tho im confident in my own ability to do the job I had two problems. One, I couldn’t speak Portuguese and two, my attraction the receptionist. The fact I couldn’t speak Portuguese could be over come by lessons and at first a translator. My agent Paul could speak a little Spanish and was fluent in French so there was a start. Secondly, my attraction for said receptionist could be overlooked but if she came into play her contract would have to be terminated.

After the tour I sat down with Paulo, he said he had connections with FIFA, and that they had been impressed with my Pro License exams. He had been informed that I had achieved one of the best grades there. He went on to say that offering me the job would a massive risk for him, especially as he has managers such as Sven Goran-Eriksson and Ruud Gullit interested in the job. My stomach was churning, I had butterflies. “But if you want the job, be here at 9:00am tomorrow morning and it’s yours. I will arrange a press conference” Paulo finished. We shook hands again; thank goodness that it was a better handshake than our first one. Me and Paul left Estádio José Alvaladeand went back to are hotel.

After dinner at our hotel, I wanted to get an early night so I went back to our room. Paul said that he wanted to check out the local sights so he could give me a better tour of the local sights tomorrow. As I came out of the hotels restaurant there was press everywhere, I thought Sven or Ruud must have been here as well but I was wrong all the reporters were here for me. They were shouting all kinds of things at me. I couldn’t understand a lot of the things they were saying. They could have been shouting “Your mum’s a slu*” or even “Varney for president” but all I wanted to do was ignore them, I knew if I had responded with I want the Sporting job Paulo would have been in rage. So as they were rushing towards me pointed microphones and good know what I ducked and dived up the stairs to my room. That night I couldn’t sleep, all I could think about was my new job, I had so many big plans for this club, I wanted to get them to be one of the biggest clubs in European football.