Tactically, you have to read the sentence properly. Al-Nassr, Cristiano Ronaldo’s club, sounded out Marc Brys. He said no. He gave his reason to Voetbalkrant: “Yes, but then I’d also have to take the Saudi Arabia national team on top.”
Two jobs for one man. I put my mug of coffee down on the folder and counted mine. First-team coach, goalkeeping coach when Didier doesn’t turn up, bibs manager, driver for the two we go and fetch at half-time, and the bar till in the last quarter of an hour, because the till doesn’t mind itself. Five jobs. I’m not saying it’s the same workload as a Saudi club plus a national team. I’m saying I know the problem. A flat pitch away, mind you.
Doubling up is a subject for the Tuesday team talk. On Tuesday you prepare the club’s 4-4-2. On Wednesday you’d have to prepare the country’s. And if both play on the same Sunday at three, where do you sit? When the reserves and the first team play at the same time, I do one half of one and the second half of the other. The club delegate calls it modern management.
Marc Brys also says he has received dozens of offers, about half of them from national federations, including Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Bulgaria. Dozens. Last year I got one: the club next door wanted me to lend them the line marker.
He wants to coach a top-three team in the world. He put it with a precision I respect: “I’m modest, I don’t think I’m the best coach in the world, but that’s my challenge.” A clear objective, a dressing room that knows where it’s going. That’s exactly what I wrote on the board in August, with “survival” in place of “top three”.
Silly question, but if you’re manager of a club and a country, do you summon yourself?
He puts his chances of coming back to Belgium one day at about one per cent. One per cent is low. But it’s still better than our chances of a flat pitch before 2030.
It’s true, we checked: Voetbalkrant.
