Coaching The Eagles — Selection Committees to Yuan Zilai
"IT'S REALLY THE hardest bloody job in Tumbra," said retired manager George Shawcross when I interviewed him for this book a few years ago. "I'd say it's more scrutinised than that of the Prime Minister — and even then he's only got to face down three hundred people every week trying to embarrass him. The moment you sit down behind that desk, the moment you sign that contract, you become public enemy number one whenever you drop points. Everyone's questioning you; everyone thinks they can do a better bloody job than you; everyone thinks you're an idiot if you lose a single game. Mind you, we're not talking about the House of Representatives here; at least there you've got allies. In the hot seat? You're all alone."
[...] The term "football manager" really only came into its own in the 1920s, with personalities like Charles Wordsworth at Lakewood United or George Bowen at Hesham having that level of complete control over almost every detail at the clubs that their names today are so intricately tied with affording them the status of "manager". Before then (and even during that era), most teams had "head coaches" rather than "football managers", the former term implying that they were merely in charge of training the players, with the businesses of player ins and outs managed by the other, more business-savvy wing of the growing corporate enterprises that were football clubs. Coaches worked with what they were given; if one day the chairman decided to buy a new winger it became their responsibility to fit that new player into their squad. They were occasionally consulted on the ins and outs; but were never given the final say on the transfer.
"Mr. GARDNER is an exceptionally talented player with skill on and off the ball, but I largely fear that the squad will struggle to support both his play-making efforts, and not to mention his reported problems with Ego, Attitude and his general lackadaisical view on Life" was one report that John Bamford, then head coach of Serrapince, passed on to his higher-ups in the mid-1920s. The club disregarded his advice, bought the player in question — attacking midfielder Henry Gardner — anyway, and Bamford quit after three months after struggling to fit Gardner into his squad. [...]
[...] That same mentality was imbued within the Tumbran Football Federation, who eschewed the chance of participating in the twenty-ninth World Cup (to be held in 1930)* because they simply believed that the World Cup would not provide an "adequate standard of competition" for the Black Eagles. The game may have arrived through Quebecois merchants along the east coast — much like how Grearish sailors introduced cricket to the country along its south — but by the thirtieth year of football on these merry shores Tumbra had already grown a footballing culture to the point that hubris over the way that Tumbra played football actively led to them missing out on this opportunity, as if they were the ones that had invented the sport. There was nothing to learn from foreigners, the prevailing wisdom went; we took the simple sport and ran with it, and now we're the best at it. Names like Liventia, Bedistan and Starblaydia, treated with absolute reverence by today's fans of football, were looked upon disapprovingly or just dismissed, as if they played the sport wrongly and would lose to any full-strength Tumbran team. Tumbra never played any of these nations, though; there was just a general belief that they would beat these nations if they ever did play. [...]
[...] So without any kind of trophy to play for until the foundation of the Tamarindian Trophy in 1950, the Tumbran national team was really just an exhibition team; they went around the world, playing friendlies and showcasing the "Tumbran style" of football wherever they went. In keeping with the dominant mode of how football teams were coached — the separation of business and coaching — most selections were made by a "selection committee" on the Tumbran Football Federation, who then appointed a head coach to bring these disparate players together and get them to play football, Tumbran style — whatever that meant. [...]
[...] The longest-serving, if not most famous, of these hapless coaches was Frank Rea, who served as head coach from 1942 to 1951. His diaries were full of complaints over the nature of the squads he was forced to lead; sometimes the selection committee would "give me too many blasted midfielders, and too little defenders; or too many players that could play on the right, and only one on the left [...] my recommendations to them have been ignored, several times, because the selection committee refuses to consider players who might actually play the way I want them to, and instead always goes for the biggest names, who, with little exception, often have preconceived notions of who they want to play under, how they want to play and with generally inflated notions of their skill." Rea did what he could with the players he was given; though after a dismal showing at the inaugural Tamarindian Trophy, in which a Black Eagles team that was slated to go all the way to the final exited in the group stage after two draws and a single humiliating defeat to the far-off nation of Sokoku, he was given his notice. Rea, however, did make clear that the problem did not lie with him; but rather, the selection committee; and in a highly-publicised interview after the team returned to Tumbra, he slated the Tumbran Football Federation in the press. This interview would serve as the direct impetus for the hiring of a permanent manager; the fury that had been directed at Rea after the defeat was now redirected at the Federation [...]
Tumbran NT managers, 1951-date
George Caddick (1951-1959)
Peter Dobson (1959-1965)
Benjamin Barker (1965-1970)
Henry Donovan (1970-1971)
Kevin Conway (1971-1973)
Henry Donovan (1973-1974)
Philip Crossley (1974-1979)
Robert Mansell (1979-1988)
Matthew McCallum (1988-1990)
John Moore (1990-1997)
George Shawcross (1997-2010)
Glenn Shand (2010-2016)
Bill Thompson (2016-2019)
Marco Hemmings (2019-2022)
Yuan Zilai (2022-present)
[...] George Caddick's three conditions to take the job were deceptively simple. One, he would be allowed to select whatever players he liked for the squad. Two, he would be allowed to bring in his own coaching staff. Three, he would be allowed to play however he wanted; instructions like "play entertaining football", he warned, would be ignored. The Federation, well aware that there were little alternatives, acceded; and thus today Caddick is widely regarded as the first proper manager of the Tumbran national football team. Rea et al. have been relegated to a historical footnote as "head coaches" [...]
[...] Swinging markedly defensive, Caddick's playstyle of patient build-up and counterattack — citing it as 'the easiest brand of football to impart into players' with limited time' marked a distinct upswing in the national team's fortunes, coming back to win the third edition of the tournament in 1954, with the final of that tournament — against Kyrast — seeing the Black Eagles win 1-0. That one goal would prove to be the only shot on goal the team had the entire match; and "football, Tumbra-style" was born. Marked by defensive efforts, counterattacking and a strict focus on the 4-5-1 formation, which Caddick had guided to victory, the style lasted long after Caddick left the job in 1959 to rescue an ailing Lakewood City [...]
[...] What had begun as a matter of pragmatism had since become the gospel, followed rigidly to the bone by almost all of Caddick's successors; there was space for the individually talented, like Ed Lang, but he cited his early retirement from the national team as one of necessity; Tumbran football wasn't "fun", in his own words. It brought results, but it was boring as all hell. The appointment of George Shawcross in 1997 tried to change that; Shawcross brought an energy to the national team that hadn't been seen for a long while, and his style of football — predicated on individual expression, style and generally possession football — led to headlines about whether Tumbran football was "fun" again [...]
[...] The appointment of Yuan Zilai seemed to be a direct response to the naysayers in the Tumbran footballing community who complained that Hemmings' approach to football was too "open"; Hemmings, of course, having been influenced greatly by Shawcross at Fraser Valley. There exists a concept of a "coaching tree" in other sports, tracing who "brought up" and influenced other coaches; Shawcross and Hemmings' link on any such hypothetical tree would probably be the most obvious [...]
[...] But it seems to have worked; the fourth-placed finish at the World Cup marking the short-term triumph of "football, Tumbran style". There are other names for it; Ko-orenites will happily accept the mantle of the world's most defensive team in whichever sport allows them to play defensively; while Audioslavia's "kontrapuntzeka" or "post-football", or whatever they might care to call it in the postmodernist nation, can claim its lineage from the Rejistanian turn of phrase "karela"; but "football, Tumbran-style" seems to have imbued itself into the mind of most Tumbrans as "counter-attacking, cautious, never too aggressive, relying on good technical skill." There may be breaks in the old family tree — Shawcross and Hemmings comes to mind, while other names like Riedweld, leading the dominant Lakewood City machinery and propagating a long-held, almost religious belief in one-touch, fluid football do too — but by far and large, the legacy of the Tumbran manager is that — "Football, Tumbran-style." Yuan may perhaps not realise it, but in playing the way that he does he carries on the legacies of people like George Caddick and Robert Mansell; and, if the rumour is true, that may have been the factor that gave him the job in the first place. It is very much like the Tumbran people to rely on what they know best to achieve results; after all, the ends justify the means.
And possibly nowhere is that more obvious than in the world of football.
*IC-wise the World Cup began in 1900, and was organised once every year until 1957, when it began the two-year cycle after World Cup 56. From 1950 till 2018 Tumbra partook in the "Tamarind Trophy", which was basically a World Cup but Shittier (read: filled with Tumbran puppets).