A Football Manager Career

8: A Hall of Fame Obsession

Thanks to the money from our Champions League exploits I was able to retain all the players I wanted on new contracts and I picked up a few lads on frees to give us some greater depth. The first eleven however remained the same and we were once again set-up for Rial to score the goals to fire us to victory. In the previous season we had achieved just a double because of our Champions League focus. This season I was determined to win every domestic thing going and to ignore the temptations of continental glory. All that mattered were those few Hall of Fame points for me to become the King of Hong Kong. 

The season did not start well. We lost the Community Cup, we lost the Senior Shield 1st round and we lost the first two games in the Sapling Cup group. We had won every game in the league, but the league alone wouldn't be enough to get me top of the pile. I was not only livid, but confused. I had played my strongest side in those cup games and hadn't tweaked with the winning formula of the past seasons and yet we had been brushed aside effortlessly.

Things were then complicated for me when Wuhan invited me for an interview. They had an awful season and had been relegated from the Chinese Super League. However, with their recourses and players they were the clear favourites to win the title and get straight back to the top the following season. It was the sort of opportunity I had been longing for – a chance to get into the Super League. However, how could I leave now sitting just second in a nation's Hall of Fame? I rejected the offer through gritted teeth.

On my 35th birthday it was confirmed that we were out of the Sapling Cup due to our awful performances in the group. I wasn't completely demoralised however as a few days later my hard work paid off and I gave myself the great gift of gaining my Continental A Licence. I was confident that when I chose to leave the club I would be able to move onto better things. My reputation was now far higher than Kitchee's own and things were going 'fine' with Denmark. Not spectacular, but fine.

As for the Champions League, I didn't even bother going to the games. I set a rotated squad and sent my assistant to manage them instead. A little sad perhaps, but I didn't want the distraction. We lost 5-0 to Shandong, 3-5 to Sydney and 0-2 to Jeonbuk in the first three games.

To my delight things seemed to have returned to normal as we had scraped our way into the Semis of the FA Cup and were level on points at the top of the league. Age was perhaps sadly catching up with Rial though and he had only managed to score three goals so far despite appearing in nearly every match. I confronted him about the form and demanded he pick himself up and he got angry with me. But, it seemed to do the trick as he thankfully did improve in the remainder of the season – nowhere near his previous form, but good enough and he scored in the Semi to get us a much needed 1-0 win. 

Despite not caring about the Champions League and leaving some of our best players at home, we inexplicably still had a hangover after each game. We didn't have a big enough squad to leave everyone behind and so when we came down to the final two games of the season it was still possible we could finish the season without a single trophy. Not only would that be a huge dent in my ambitions to top the Hall of Fame, but it was also incredibly possible that I could be fired. Of course, I was listed under the club's favoured personnel and had been incredibly successful. But, a season without winning anything? And my time split between the club and a European national side? Any board would start having their doubts. The 16th and 22nd May became the only two dates that mattered to me. The pressure was on.

We won the cup, but finished third in the league. Furthermore, the board were 'deeply saddened' by my leadership and were considering my position. While I had been undeniably incredibly successful, I had done this at the expense of some of the expectations under the club culture. The board had been quite content to ignore these things when I was winning everything, but now that we weren't they were less willing to overlook things. For example, it was expected that I would never sign players over the age of 30 and yet because of the huge limitations in budget I had signed quite a few older pros on free transfers to bulk up the squad and give us a winning mentality. I was also expected to play people from the club's youth system. Now, I am entirely on board with that in theory. I love developing young stars: after all, I had won things with China u23 and many of my lads had gone on to do well with the senior side. The problem, however, was that Kitchee didn't really have a youth academy. Not a single player in the academy in the period I was manager was good enough to become a fringe player at the club, let alone a regular.

I was the second most successful manager in Hong Kong history, just 16 points behind Chan Hung Ping, and yet my job was still in the balance. Fortunately, they didn't sack me and let me prove myself in the final year of my contract. It wasn't what I had planned, and it set me back another year, but I wasn't going to leave Hong Kong as second best.