Deserving managers continue to get overlooked by Premier League
There was a managerial job open in the Premier League. And so of course it was filled with a man who had already been a Premier League manager. Twice.
After Newcastle United finally realized that the Steve McClaren Disaster was, in fact, a disaster, it went with the least imaginative choice possible: Rafa Benitez. The Spaniard had turned down the West Ham United job in the summer in favor of the Real Madrid post, knowing full well that he probably wouldn't be long for his old club – where he played on the reserve team for seven years and would later manage it, too. Sure enough, he was fired on Jan. 4.
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Benitez had a winding and unremarkable coaching career until he found success with Valencia, winning La Liga twice. Liverpool then hired him, and he reached the Champions League final twice in three years. But since then, he has spiraled down.
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His stint with Inter Milan was a disaster. He was forgettable at Chelsea, although he won the Europa League. And he was undistinguished with Napoli, which did about as well as it was supposed to but not much better. And then came the brief spell at Real Madrid, where the players never accepted him as the popular Carlo Ancelotti's successor, even though he performed reasonably well.
The knock on Benitez is that he's stuck in the past tactically, that he can't inspire a locker room, and, well, just about everything else you can knock a coach for. But decisions such as these, made by panicking relegation-threatened teams like Newcastle, predictably overlook deserving coaches whose only resume gap is that they haven't been Premier League managers before.
And so we sing the Sad Ballad of Bob Bradley once again. About the itinerant American manager who does nothing but strong work, overachieving with troubled teams wherever he goes, just to be ignored for the big jobs in the end.
It's only the bigger English clubs who will take a chance on a manager not previously tested in the Premier League. Like Liverpool did, once upon a time, Benitez. But only when those managers have built up unassailable track records with major clubs abroad. And breaking into that game presents much the same challenges.
Which is why Bradley, in spite of placing second with the United States men's national team at the 2009 Confederations Cup, leading CONCACAF qualifying for the 2010 World Cup and coming close to reaching the quarterfinals in South Africa, can't get a big job. Instead, he's been relegated to positions with the Egyptian national team, a Norwegian club almost certain of relegation – Stabaek, which he not only kept up, but steered into the Europa League – and, now, Le Havre, of the French second tier.
The rest of the Premier League would rather hire somebody who has already worked there. To the clubs, it feels safe, no matter how mediocre, or poor, the new manager's record really is. Mark Hughes has now held five Premier League jobs. So have Sam Allardyce and Harry Redknapp. Plenty of others have managed several clubs, getting endless cracks at it without any significant distinction to justify the cycle of opportunities.
This is one of the few subjects the muted Bradley has been vocal about. "I think that in many cases decision-makers play it safe," he told the AP last year. "There's certainly a network. There are still a lot of good managers. There are also a lot of bad managers. It's not to say that sometimes you don't shake your head at how certain guys keep popping up in jobs."
There's no telling if Newcastle even considered Bradley. Probably not. Because he doesn't have Premier League experience. Le Havre currently sits a mere point out of a promotion place to Ligue 1 with nine games to go after a disastrous start to the season.
But Rafa Benitez is the new Newcastle manager. Because Benitez had already been a Premier League manager.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
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