Journey to the Unknown

After a good night's sleep, all I was waiting for was one email to show me the interest of at least one club in me being their manager. I got out of bed, made myself a good cup of coffee and turned on my computer. I went through and deleted quite a lot of junk to stay with this list of emails:

So many emails from around the world. Most were offers from Portugal, the lowest division, teams that found their way into the Relegation Stage, where they must fight to survive. The rest were from South Korea and Finland, where the leagues haven't started yet.
I had to stay up for a long time to get around all these interviews. I had to do a lot of lying, mostly because I had no idea what I could actually do with these teams. Hopefully I managed to impress some of the Chairmen.

I can't really say that it was easy to sleep this past week. Knowing that any day now I will receive a response from a chairman, asking me to be the manager of his club. I tried to move my thoughts away from all this so I went out with a couple of friends, just like any normal 25 year old. So yes, I got a bit drunk, but it was worth it. I didn't expect to wake up so early, but a phone call from a good friend of mine, a lawyer and my so called 'agent', couldn't do much more but wake me up.

Sounding very excited, he ordered me to check my email.

Looking through that list made my day. 5 teams offered me a contract, with my job title being the manager. That is 5 more teams than I would have expected. 3 of them, Portuguese, Not very surprising, as there were more teams from Portugal that interviewed me. The others were the two teams from South Korea and Finland. My friend and I decided to go drink coffee and browse through all the contracts as well as how the teams are looking, to give us a clearer image on where I should find a new house.

We looked through all of the contracts given to me, and one really stood out. We looked for the chairman on Skype, to try and finalise some things before signing the contract. Sergio Fidalgo, what a name. To me, he might just be one of the most important people in my career. The person that put his club, his money, just to bring me, an unknown Israeli to help get his team to the top!

After talking to him, we packed our things, knowing that in about five hours we will be on Sergio's helicopter, heading to Portugal!
We made it to the club facilities. Nothing too fancy, but I guess it is a start! The first thing he did was bring a piece of paper, indicating each and every essential detail of my contract. And in short:

I had no doubts about this and I was quick to put pen to paper, finalising my move to my first club. We went to the hotel, and went to sleep.

Early in the morning, I tried to read the local newspaper, searching for my name, and guess what, I found it!


A small town and a fairly small club. Couldn't have asked for a better start to my career!

As I already mentioned, the facilities aren't that good, but they will do for now! Semi professional means that we should get ourselves that prestigious Pro rank as soon as possible, but that will only happen with promotions. The club did not have any trophies, which is quite sad, but hopefully I will be able to get them their first piece of silverware!


Some parts of the squad are very strong and some are very weak. Hopefully we can use that to our advantage to finish this season without being relegated, and then I will have the summer to get in some better players. That is if Mr. Fidalgo decides to extend my contract at the end of the season.

After almost being here for two months, i feel like I am getting settled here. I like this place a lot. It is a bit hard to understand the players, and for some of the players to understand me, but what is there to say that I can't draw?


As you can see, we weren't very decisive on whether we are a good team or not. My first game in charge was amazing, as you can see, we won 2-0 and I was looking forward to more good results. Sadly, that was only followed by two loses. Despite losing to teams that are better than us I believe that we are doing quite well.
One major factor to this is the lack of good players. Despite having a couple of very good players, such as Costa and Catarino, they are more than averaged out by how bad the other players are, and that is something that I will have to straighten out if I am to stay here next season.


So, halfway through the relegation phase, we are okay. I think it is fair to say that we won't get relegated, at least not without getting a Playoff game to maybe keep us safe. We started in 2nd with 20 points and Espinho are just better so they were quick to pass us.

Not a bad start to your new career

Thanks a lot Johno!

Life at the club got harder and harder. The players are losing their faith in me, but really, am I to blame? I did have a bit of free time with my friend but working as a manager is harder than I though it would be and being at a place where the people aren't very supportive isn't very helpful.


These results didn't help block the criticism. Our best players were injured or suspended for the most part, and as I said last time, the others just aren't good enough. I tried tweaking up the tactics we were using but nothing helped and we were unable to get a win despite a 1-0 win against Vildemoinhos, which kept us safe!


Somehow, we managed to stay clear of any relegation threat, which is amazing taking into account how bad we played.


Despite being offered a new contract, I decided that this club isn't the club I want to manage and that I want to start a new chapter to my career.


And this is it! I am now going back to Israel, where my family is. Hopefully I can find a new job very soon.

This game loves to mess with me... Didn't think that leaving Ver would mean going on holiday for 8 years with only one interview which didn't get me the job. This is sadly over and I am just going to play as Chelsea with an updated DB... Might do a career with that save if I can get into it.

Nice! KIU!

8 years and only one job interview?! Hope you do post up your Chelsea career