Monday 25th June 2006 - 10:00am – Press Conference – Estádio José Alvalade Stadium
The Chairman stood up from the desks and announces “Ladies and Gentleman, I here by announce to you the new manager of Sporting Clube de Portugal, Tom Varney” Gasps filled the room, most reporters had their cameras ready to photo Mr. Eriksson or Mr. Gullit, but they had to make do with me, a relatively unknown face in football. I walked into the room stood next to Filipe and shook his hand, I had been practicing my hand shake and I was please in the way we shook hands. The shake lasted for around five seconds so the reporters could capture the Chairman’s new signing. I then posed with a Sporting Clube scarf lofted high above my shoulders. Filipe then went on to say how he had made a massive risk in appointing me manager but he wanted to make absolutely clear that I had the full backing of the board. I then had to answer a few questions.
Q: What are your first thoughts on getting the job as Sporting Manger?
A: I am very much honored to become part of this fantastic club.
Q: How did you initially hear about the job?
A: I heard that Mr. Bento' job was under threat and I asked my agent to speak to Filipe and say to him that I was interested in the job. Next question please.
Q: Without any managerial experience are you shocked that you have been given the job?
A: I am very shocked, I heard that Sven Eriksson and Ruud Gullit were interested and may have applied for the job so I am very shocked to be picked over them. I am willing to put everything into this job and I want to gain every success in the future.
Q: So what plans and aims do you have at the moment?
A: My plans are simple, to make Sporting Lisbon the best team in Portugal in the short term and long term one of the best, most feared teams in Europe. Thank you very much for your time but I now have to get on and meet my players and build for the future. Thank you again.
So I stood up and left the conference room, the reporters stood up and appauled me. I was in dream world; I couldn’t believe how far I had come in such a little time. This time last year I was playing football part-time for my local side, and at the bottom of the FA Coaching ladder. Now im a FIFA Pro license holder and manager of a European team on the up.
Monday 25th June 2006 – 12:00am
Sat in my office for the first time; a lovely modern office, wireless internet connected to my Laptop. I had to get used to using my Microsoft Outlook if I wanted to gain news from around the world and contact various clubs about the availability of their players. I wanted to get on, my aims for today were to meet my backroom staff and players, I wanted to gain knowledge from my staff about each player. I needed to asses my players; decide who I wanted to keep, release, transfer-list or loan out.
After meeting with staff I decided that I wanted to keep all staff that I had on board, I offered Carlos Periera and new contract which he accepted straight away. Same wage but moving from goalkeeper coach to first team coach. I wanted to bring in an experienced goalkeeper for the new role. I also wanted to have a very wide range of scouts available to me. So I insisted in bring in six more scouts and one more goalkeeping coach. I offered contracts to seven or eight scouts, and only offered one deal to a new goalkeeping coach.
After meeting with my coaches and players, I decided I wanted to bring in Europe’s top young players to succeed under my management. Straight away I sent out some un-wanted and promising youngsters out to my feeder clubs, Vit.Setubal and E.Amadora, this would help players get regular team opportunities.
I ordered my new scouts to search around Europe looking for top European players with potential. I wanted them to report back with a database of players to look closer at, so when I have discussed my transfer budget I can look closer into improving my squad.
Thursday 28th June – 8:00am
I wanted to get things going, I was eager to carry this club forward. I urged my scouts to do a quick detailed search of different nations. I wanted them to scout, England, Belgium, Denmark, France, Croatia, Poland and finally Greece. I wanted to bring together a European dream team. It seems now that most of the top Portuguese players aren’t playing in the Bwin Liga. You see Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani move from Sporting to play in the premiership with Man United and Maniche and Simao playing for Atletico Madrid in Spain. This doesn’t look good for Portuguese football, it shows that they are producing the quality but they can’t hold on to them. In future years I want to nurture our current youth academy to become top, top internationals.
1st July 2006 – 11:00am
Im getting used to my office now; im not taking wrong turns and im used to having my own sexy secretary now. She hasn’t become that much of a distraction as I once thought she might have. She has the best tea making skills ever. My first meeting with my new chairman, I was looking forward to it but still was nervous. I thought there’s not need to be nervous, after all he is my new boss. We talked about what he wanted me succeed and vice versa, we agreed on all fronts apart from one. The European stage, he wanted to succeed in qualifying for the main stage of the Euro Cup but I needed to be challenging for a Semi final if not final place. He was surprised by my optimism but I explained to him that the players and I have already hit it off in training and in some of the recent team get togethers. We then went on to talk about future budgets, he explained to me that he had recently injected 4,000,000 Euros into the club and went on to say that our new sponsor Novarits.ch has matched his injection so I had 7,000,000 Euros to spend. I explained to Filipe that I was appreciative of this much at my disposal that he wouldn’t be disappointed at the end of the season.
