A Football Manager Career

2: Heading to China

I wish I could say that I moved to China that summer. However, things did not run that smooth. 

Following what I had thought to be a very successful interview, it took just six days for Xu to let me know that I had been unsuccessful. In fact, it took a further five months and a further four unsuccessful interviews for me to finally get my first job. It seems that having an empty CV full of nothing but passion is not as desired as one may hope... 

The silver lining of this lengthy wait for a job was that it meant I took over in the off-season and thus didn't have the complications of a gruelling relegation battle and the subsequent early career reputation of a firefighting Tony Pulis. What's more, Neimenggu Zhongyou weren't even a club predicted to even be in a relegation battle! Their Chairman Wu Zheng had made it clear to me in the interview process that they were a club of incredibly tame expectations with their aim to be remaining in the league and nothing more. Obviously they harboured ambitions to one day get up the league and get into the Super League above, but that wasn't something they expected anytime soon with no plans for investment of any sort. Based on my early investigations, the club's main issue was that whenever they did slightly well, their manager and players would be poached from someone bigger and they would have to rebuild again with the meagre profits from their transfers. This was an issue for Wu and the fan base, but for me it was a great opportunity: I desperately wanted to be poached.

First things first, however, I had to mould the club to my image. I had waited almost a year for this job and I wasn't about to just sit back and do the bare minimum. I had all the energy in the world after my lengthy holidays (and the constant ingestion of coffee) and I was raring to go.

After a survey of the squad it became quickly clear that I needed to sort out the squad balance as we had eight strikers, seven midfielders and just two defenders. You don't have to be in the Hall of Fame to know this is wrong and so I instantly jumped in and listed each and every striker for transfer. Hasty, perhaps, but it's the best way to see who we could get money for and anyone who has managed outside the top divisions will know that the bank balance is annoyingly at the top of the agenda. I didn't expect to sell them all of course, but from what I'd seen on the training ground and read about their season, they were all painfully average. And, to make matters worse, nearly all of them were occupying a foreign player spot in my squad and as far as I was concerned none of them were earning that slot.

If you're unfamiliar with Chinese football then shame on you! There's been so much coverage of it in recent years because of some of the huge wages on offer and the big name foreign players like Renato Augusto and Mascherano. These players occupy a few foreign player spots at each club and are often the stardust that completely transform a club's fortunes. While it is of course these players and the top sides that attract the headlines, the teams in the lower tiers are also subject to similar rules and there is the same potential for a couple of great foreign players to completely transform a side. The foreign star at Neimenggu Zhongyou when I arrived was Andre Senghor. Now, I am quite the football buff and yet I must admit that I hadn't heard of him when I joined the club. However, the fans loved him and he was seen as our star asset. He had 8 caps for Senegal and had managed to score once for his country. Furthermore, he had played for one of the biggest sides in the U.A.E and thus brought no small amount of continental reputation. This was all well and good and I didn't harbour any personal disrespect towards him, but as far as I was concerned he wasn't going to cut it and I wanted him out. You see, you're only allowed a maximum of three foreign players in your registered squad and I didn't want to waste a slot on anybody that I didn't personally rate and consider to be a genuine footballing name. I wasn't naïve and knew that I had no hope with my non-existent budget and club reputation of signing a Messi, but I harboured hopes of getting a Crouch. Is that too much to ask for?