AS THE night sky darkens over Lisbon this evening, enveloping the Luz Stadium for one final time, it will end a tournament in which the stars just didn’t come out. Not Zidane of France, not Raul of Spain, not Totti of Italy, and for the second successive finals, not even their teams, who together with England, Germany and Holland could not live up to their billing. Instead, with the possible exception of Wayne Rooney, the stars at Euro 2004 have been managers.
Even they have not been the usual suspects. Some of the brightest have been those in charge of modest sides, unfashionable leaders lacking the celebrity of a former player, as well as the resources of Italy, Spain and France. By way of explanation fo
r the list of high-profile casualties these past three weeks, they say that fatigue has hampered the game’s most dynamic individuals, and that they have not been able to produce their best, but the truth is that they have not been allowed to.
The biggest success stories in Portugal have been a 55-year-old Gene Hackman lookalike, a senior citizen of 65 whose many achievements in Germany did not impress the Greek supporters when he was appointed two years ago, and a 64-year-old chess-playing Czech with the long white hair of a Native American. Luiz Felipe Scolari and, more particularly, Otto Rehhagel and Karel Bruckner are not exactly sporting icons, but three of the four semi-finalists had them to thank.
The game, we are told, is all about players. Managers point out, usually after defeat, that they are powerless almost as soon as their team cross the white line. Steve Coppell, the Reading manager, once said that his job was a bit like that of a prostitute because he depended on other people for a living. Euro 2004 has dispelled those myths, and restored faith in a profession that can carry passengers.
Craig Brown, the former Scotland manager, admires the manner in which coaches have dictated matches in these finals. As in Serie A, they have been pro-active, he explains, which is to say that they have anticipated problems rather than reacted to them. "They have been working for their living," says Brown. "They start with one system, one set of players, and change them when circumstances demand. It’s not like Scotland, where you put your team out and that’s it. Here, you don’t know what Greece are going to do next."
The players in Portugal have not provided that little bit extra, the stroke of genius that separates winners and losers, but the managers have stepped up to show that they can make the difference. Czech striker Milan Baros has been the revelation of a tournament short on glamour, but it would have been impossible without the vehicle afforded him by Bruckner. Few will pretend that the Liverpool player is Europe’s leading striker. Many share his potential, but he has the platform on which to exploit it.
No-one would dare to claim that Greece boast the continent’s best players, but somehow they have beaten the hosts, Portugal, and the defending champions, France. The reason, of course, is Rehhagel, the former Werder Bremen, Kaiserslautern and Bayern Munich coach, who has become the toast of his adopted country despite deploying just a single striker up front and allowing their opponents what seems like uninterrupted possession of the ball.
The man-marking with which his defenders have silenced a string of stars, including Zinedine Zidane, will be repeated in tonight’s final. Not every manager has been a success in Portugal, far from it, but the teams who have achieved most can attribute that more to their coaches than to their players. "Greece have proved that, with one of the world’s best managers, an ordinary team can be successful," says Brown.
Managers, rarely so rewarded for their endeavours, have been responsible for the number of matches won by the team who conceded first. They have demonstrated, with their timely interventions, a remarkable ability to alter the course of a game. Bruckner reversed a deficit in each of the Czech Republic’s three group outings. Substitute Marek Heinz scored against Latvia, and Baros came off the bench to score against Germany.
His change against Holland when the Czechs were 2-1 down was nothing short of inspired. While Dick Advocaat was being ridiculed for withdrawing Arjen Robben, Bruckner’s introduction of Vladimir Smicer gave Pavel Nedved the freedom in central midfield to become man of the match in a 3-2 win.
By securing qualification, the coach who has never worked with a club outside the Czech Republic, gave himself a chance to plot a strategic route through the finals, resting most of his team against Germany. They said the Czechs lacked depth, but in that match they beat the World Cup finalists with their reserve team. Against Denmark in the quarter-finals, they surrendered nearly two-thirds of possession in the first half, but ran out 3-0 winners, restricting Morten Olsen’s side to just a solitary shot on goal.
Portugal’s Scolari turned the quarter-final against England on its head, but his perfection of that tactic has been more noticeable over the course of the tournament, thanks largely to the wholesale changes he made after losing to Greece in the opening match. The coach who stoked a controversy by omitting Romario from Brazil’s World Cup squad two years ago was at his ruthless best after the early setback in Porto.
Jorge Andrade was the only player to survive his cull, in which Fernando Couto dropped to the bench for the first time in five years. Nuno Valente and Miguel came in for full-backs Rui Jorge and Paulo Ferreira, while Rui Costa lost his place to Deco, the playmaker who could then form a midfield triangle with his Porto team-mates, Costinha and Maniche.
Brown says that the best managers create "a structure for freedom", which is what Scolari did with Brazil, and has now done with the technically-gifted Portugal. "I have to admit that bombing players, as he did after the first match, was reactive," Brown observes, "but even if his team had won the match, he is the kind of guy who would have dropped his weak players anyway. He doesn’t mess around. He is the most pro-active manager of all."
Having established a structure, albeit after that defeat on the opening day, Scolari has stuck with it. The team have flourished on his firm foundation, all the way to this evening’s final. Portugal’s success, despite the lack of an outstanding striker, is thanks also to the coach’s spectacular substitutions.
Replacements have scored five of Portugal’s eight goals so far: Cristiano Ronaldo against Greece, Rui Costa against Russia, Nuno Gomes against Spain, and Helder Postiga and Rui Costa against England. Luis Figo, who produced his best performance of the tournament against Holland in the quarter-finals, had been replaced in each of Portugal’s previous three matches.
In the Alvalade Stadium on Wednesday, Scolari called Figo over to the touchline and offered him advice with the help of a magnetic tactics board. The suspicion was that his intention was not so much to impart information as to provide the player, and watching public, with a demonstration of his authority. Given his impact over three weeks, there should have been no need for a reminder.
The full article contains 1275 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
