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Manuel Pellegrini

Full name: Manuel Luis Pellegrini Ripamonti
Born: 16 September 1953 in Santiago
Nationality: Chilean
Nickname: “The Engineer”
Clubs as a player: 1973-1986: Universidad de Chile (451 appearances) Honours as a player: 1979: Chilean cup winner. 28 caps for Chile, 1 goal. Career as a coach: 1987-1989: Universidad de Chile. 1990-1991: Palestino 1990-1991: Chilean U-20 team. 1993-1993: O’Higgins. 1994-1996: Universidad Catolica. 1998: Palestino. 1999-2000: LDU Quito (Ecuador). 2001-2002: San Lorenzo (Argentina). 2002-2003. River Plate (Argentina). Since 1 July 2004: Villarreal (Spain).
Honours as a coach: 1994: Copa Interamericana winner. 1995: Chilean cup winner. 1999: Ecuadorian league winner. 2001: winner of Argentinian Clausura. 2001: Copa Mercosur winner. 2003: winner of Argentinian Clausura. 2004: UEFA Intertoto Cup winner.
Miscellaneous: In 1979 he obtained a degree in civil engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, majoring in construction.

“I Have Given It All I Have Got”

After successful spells in his native Chile and in Argentina, 54-year-old Manuel Pellegrini has been head coach of Spanish club Villarreal since 2004.
FM: In 2004 you joined Villarreal and embarked on an ambitious project but one which you have always approached calmly. Almost four seasons later, there is no doubt that your time in charge of the “Yellow Submarine” has been one long success story. How would you assess your time at the club? Manuel Pellegrini: When you join a club, you come with a lot of expectations and the desire to transmit your footballing beliefs. I knew that this was a solid and coherent project and I have given it all I’ve got.

Like life itself, this project has had its highs and lows, but you have always come out of it in the best possible manner. Did you ever consider leaving Villarreal when you were going through a period of bad results?
Pellegrini: First of all, if you analyse the past four years, I don’t know if there have been any lows. In the first season we qualified for the Champions League after finishing third in the league and reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup. The following season we reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, came seventh in the league and played in the Intertoto Cup, although we did not qualify for the UEFA Cup. Last season was difficult in some respects because we did not live up to the expectations we had created for ourselves and because of certain external factors. It was difficult, but we finished fifth. There is currently a lot of dissatisfaction even though we’ve spent the whole of the season in the Champions League places. What low points? I don’t think we have ever been through periods where we thought that things weren’t working out. There have been no internal problems either. It may be that externally we have fallen short of our objective, but I am very satisfied with the work we have done and with the attitude of the group.

That raises two issues. First of all, is your greatest achievement to have instilled team spirit? And secondly, do you believe that you have particularly improved the team from a psychological standpoint?
Pellegrini: My greatest achievement has been to obtain commitment from the players. Here everyone plays the same except Barcelona; we had to ensure commitment to the system because that is always very important to a coach. From a psychological standpoint, I think that the team has good moments and bad ones depending on the results. There was a crisis here last year and the squad were not happy. There are 25 different people and they all think in a different way. The most important thing is that they are all committed to reaching a particular target.

Which target?
Pellegrini: Those who are only interested in results say that winning is the only way to play well. I want my players to play well to win.

Do you not think that being solid in defence and quick on the counter-attack is also good football?
Pellegrini: To play well is to win. I’ve always said that. But you have to consider the manner in which you won. A pragmatic coach is someone who praises the team for time-wasting and drawing fouls and is not interested in the cohesion of the team. I respect that idea. But do I want to play like that? When I am asked about that footballing philosophy, I neither understand it nor do I accept it. My best example of playing well is against Barcelona and I’m not just using it because we won the last match against that great team [3-1 away]. We never asked for the stretcher, we didn’t waste time when taking free kicks or throw-ins, the team wanted to keep playing to the point of being irresponsible if you want to put it like that. Logically, if you have a good defence you usually play well. I can understand why people praise that approach. Some people come and play like that at the Madrigal and they deserve some credit because winning is the only way to play well.

Which would you prefer, to win the league or to come second playing magnificent football?
Pellegrini: Aesthetically speaking it is more important to win the league, but there is less chance of winning the league if you don’t play well.

This Villarreal side, your Villarreal, stands out because of its 4-4-2 system, but you constantly adapt this formula as you go in search of victory. Do you believe in tactical systems?
Pellegrini: They are useful, but not to win. They can be used to bring a certain mechanical quality to the play, but to win you clearly need the individual skills of the players you have inserted into the system. I personally think that tactics are intelligence applied to the game. We have played against Barcelona several times using a second striker like Robert Pires and we have won, but then that same system and team that beat Barcelona were thrashed by Zaragoza. Effectiveness and performance is also decisive. My idea is that you can put defenders, midfielders or even a forwards on the wings, the important thing is to occupy the space. You have to sacrifice a striker, but it is better with two attacking midfielders because they create more fluidity in attack. But it all varies, the name may vary, but not the system. You make tactical changes at particular moments in a match in an attempt to change the game. There’s a cliche in journalism that says that the ball suffers a lot. I don’t understand that. The ball can’t play, if Barcelona have the ball you have to find another way of beating them. The best way to do damage to an opponent is to get in behind them through runs from deep from Eguren or Pires with Guille Franco playing with his back to goal. But it is the team performance that wins matches, never the system.

When you arrived here, you made one remark that has been repeated ad nauseam: “I don’t believe in projects of more than three years”. You have now been here for four years and have extended your contract for another two …
Pellegrini: That comment comes from a statistic that says that 98 per cent of coaches do not last more than two years at a club. You have to develop more short-term projects, although there are exceptions such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger … But in this project I have targets, maybe not specific ones, because we are trying to close the gap on the big clubs in La Liga. There was no reason not to carry on. However, not all seasons are identical. You have to live for the day, I can’t predict the future, which is defined by the present.

You have suffered a lot of adversity in one season, as happened last year with the crisis with Riquelme, the cruciate ligament injuries suffered by Gonzalo, Pires and Nihat and your poor position in the table. But despite everything, you decided to carry on because the board continued to believe in you …
Pellegrini: Without the board’s support it would have been difficult to carry on. Furthermore, the president was of the same view and gave me a new contract last season. We shook hands and continue to move forward. But I wouldn’t like to go after a bad run, but leave the club in a healthy state after everything we have achieved in this time. People have got into the bad habit of seeing the team high up the table fighting it out with the big clubs.

From what you say, I gather that you never considered leaving the club.
Pellegrini: The possibility of leaving is always there. There are always offers but I have been coherent because I am happy at this club and I still have things to offer it.

Imagine that the same thing happens to you as to Juande Ramos, you receive a dizzying offer from another club halfway through the season and have to decide whether to take it …
Pellegrini: I was in that very situation this season and decided to say no. That’s not a criticism of Juande Ramos, it’s my point of view. If I don’t feel committed, I say goodbye and I go. Ramos made that decision and there’s nothing else to say. I have a commitment with this club and I intend to honour it.

One of the most important features of your project over the last few seasons has been the large number of Latin American footballers who have played for you alongside the Europeans. Aside from their quality, is their ability to adapt quickly a decisive factor in their performance?
Pellegrini: I would not make any distinction between Latin American and European footballers. We have ttied to bring a good level of performance out of all the players in the squad. Then you have the youth players. Others have not performed well but that is not so much to do with nationality as with the requirements of the technical staff and the work the player puts in.

Another distinguishing feature is Villarreal’s youth system. During your time at the club, players such as Cazorla, Hector Font, Arzo, Marcos and Bruno, virtually one a season, have come through.
Pellegrini: I think it’s very important to prioritise youth development. Training players is very important for the club and luckily for the coaching staff, players have emerged who strengthen the club’s work and commitment.

Your compatriot Matias Fernandez is a future prospect. However, the fact he is 21, has a lot of quality and is promising player but needs to be looked after or, to be more precise, polished detracts from his image quite a lot.
Pellegrini: Yes, polish is the word. He has many qualities, but in Chile people thought that he would be a great success despite his youth. He arrived here and encountered a different type of football and a heavy playing schedule. I knew that he would need time to get used to everything. He has realised that he needs to be calm.

Could the pressure on the player have been an obstacle?
Pellegrini: Possibly. People criticise his performances and he is surrounded by a great deal of expectation. It is up to the coaching staff to assess his work. He is a work in progress, he has the ability to be successful. But I don’t think that the praise affects his performance, you can tell it hasn’t gone to his head. He is very serious in that regard.

Speaking of Chile, do you intend to coach the Chilean national team one day?
Pellegrini: I would love to. If the opportunity arose, if both parties wete amenable I would like to finish my career coaching the national team, but both parties would have to be willing. Right now, my mind is on Villarreal.

There has been speculation that this may happen when your contract with Villarreal expires.
Pellegrini: It coincides with 2010 but I live in the present, not the future. We’ll see what happens.

Germany’s first international match, against Switzerland in Basle on 5 April 1908, was something of an adventure for eleven young German men who had to pay for their own travel to Switzerland after the German football association only gave them 20 marks towards the trip. There was no manager to speak of, which meant that captain Hiller II had to give a team talk shortly before kick-off, which cannot have been easy for him because he hardly knew his team-mates, never mind their strengths or weaknesses. His rather unusual name, Hiller II, is easily explained, however, because he played with his brother and his nephew for FC Pforzheim, which meant that the three Hillers were simply given numbers. Hiller III also played international football, winning three caps for Germany and also featuring for Argentina after emigrating to South America.
Anybody who saw the team before kick-off at 15.00h could have been forgiven for assuming that the Germans were simply a group of tourists. The official German football association report states that: “The Swiss gentlemen turned up about 10 o’clock to take us on a pleasant tour of the city. They then took us to the zoo before we discussed the afternoon match over a glass of beer.”
The “Swiss gentlemen” had obviously drunk a little more than they had intended as Becker gave Germany an early lead. But after a heavy storm around the 20-minute mark, the hosts stepped up a gear and goals from Kampfer, Hug and Pfeiffer gave them a 3-1 half-time lead, paving the way for their eventual 5-3 victory. The atmosphere at the evening banquet was cordial, to say the least. Switzerland goalkeeper Dreyfuss decided to demonstrate a save and in doing so sent bottles of mustard and sauce flying from the table and over Becker’s dinner jacket, which he had hired for 12 marks. Becker apparently had to pay 48 marks to have the suit cleaned. Germany’s first international match was certainly a costly affair for the 18-year-old student who never played for Germany again, despite having the honour of scoring his country’s first-ever goal.

Germany played their first international match 100 years ago. Their opponents were Switzerland, just as they were for Germany’s 800th game. Albert Sing, 91, has seen many of those games, so FIFA magazine went along to meet the German who has settled in Switzerland.
If there is such a thing as a “friendly international”, then it is certainly Germany v. Switzerland, as proven by some facts and figures from the teams’ most recent encounter in Basle on 26 March to mark Germany’s centenary. The match, which finished 4-0 to Germany, was the 50lh meeting between the teams. It was also Germany’s 800th international fixture. Switzerland are by some distance Germany’s most frequent opponent, their 50 games giving them a healthy advantage over the likes of the Netherlands (37) and Austria (35).
The two neighbours first met on a football pitch in Basle on 5 April 1908. A match in Zurich on 27 June 1920 heralded a return to the international arena after World War I, a feat that was repeated in Stuttgart after World War II on 22 November 1950.
The Germans also won their first FIFA World Cup™ title in Berne’s Wankdorf Stadium in 1954, to the surprise of many. Hungary’s Magical Magyars were the odds-on favourites, but the Germans’ victory had huge social and political significance back home. “The team’s triumph sent shockwaves throughout the entire country. People started to believe in themselves again. The players received an audience with the Pope in 1955 and movers and shakers from the worlds of politics and business told us how important our win was,” said captain Fritz Walter, who died in 2002, about an event that many believe was the catalyst for the West German economic miracle.
RIDICULED
Someone who has seen the lion’s share of Germany’s matches over the past 100 years is Albert Sing, a man who celebrated his 91st birthday on 7 April. Who better, then, to talk to about the relationship between the two countries? Sing, who won nine international caps as a player, moved to SpVgg Ceresio Schaffhausen in 1949 before forging a hugely successful career as the manager of various Swiss clubs. In 1954, Sepp Herberger made him a member of his backroom staff for the 1954 FIFA World Cup™ and Sing went on to play a key role in various areas, making a significant contribution to West Germany’s sensational triumph.
Today, the former left winger lives in Cureglia, a small village in Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland, and although he is now a pensioner who needs a walking stick to get around, he is still full of life with a twinkle in his eye. As he sits in the homely apartment that he and his wife Hilde call home, Sing proudly shows FIFA magazine some souvenirs from his career such as a letter personally signed by former West Germany manager Herberger to confirm that Sing would be his “attache” at the World Cup in 1954. He then recounts some tales from days gone by. “I was fascinated by football from a very early age and I used to have a kickabout with my friends every single day,” he says, while admitting that it was far from easy because football had not yet taken root in Germany and was still roundly dismissed as “a silly game”. Many people were still hooked on gymnastics, including Sing’s father, who was a champion and a keen advocate of the indoor sport. His son clearly remembers the “daily ridicule” he was subjected to because of his love for the beautiful game.
Times were hard for Albert, one of seven children who each had only one pair of shoes. Did he also play football in them? “Of course. Every day, for hours on end,” he laughs, explaining that it was strictly forbidden to do so.
“STAY BACK, ALBERT!”
Sing took his first steps in international football when he made his debut for Germany on 20 October 1940 in a 7-3 victory over Bulgaria. But he had to wait 18 months for the highlight of his playing career, which came in Budapest on 3 May 1942. At half-time, Germany were trailing 3-1 to a rampant Hungarian team and “it could easily have been 5-1 or even 8-1,” according to the late Fritz Walter. In the second half, after Paul Janes had reduced the arrears to 3-2, the Germans turned the game on its head and strikes from Friedrich Dorfel and Walter gave them the lead. Then, in the 90lh minute, with Germany leading 4-3, Sing intercepted a pass in his own penalty area and immediately strode out of defence. “I can still hear Herberger on the touch line shouting ‘Stay back, Albert!’,” says Sing. “But I kept running and played four one-twos with Fritz before scoring.” The game, which was also Germany’s 500th international, finished 5-3 to the away team.
Herberger never forgot about Sing, not even after he had moved to Switzerland.
Herberger’s early decision to invite Sing to be part of his 1954 FIFA World Cup™ staff turned out to be a wise move. Indeed, it was Sing who decided to reserve the now-famous Hotel Belvedere on Lake Thun where the legendary “spirit of Spiez” was born. A few months before the tournament, Sing, who was by now the manager of Berne club Young Boys, had the honour of opening the new Wankdorf Stadium with a match against Hungary. After being deprived of five players who had been called up by Switzerland, Sing – who was by now 37 — decided to play himself to get a first-hand look at the team that West Germany would eventually go on to meet in the World Cup final. “The match allowed me to study Hungary’s many strengths and very few weaknesses,” he admits.
Hungary romped to a 9-0 win but it was a meaningless victory when compared to the knowledge that Sing had gained and would later pass on to Herberger. Sing was most impressed by the Magical Magyars’ incredible harmony as well as by their natural understanding of each other’s game, not to mention their impeccable behaviour. “Scarcely had the last few morsels of food at the post-match banquet been eaten when Ferenc Puskas and Nandor Hidegkuti swiped the white cloths from the table to recreate parts of the game,” recalls Sing. “They were looking for perfection and they wanted to analyse mistakes to make sure they didn’t happen again. And that was after winning 9-0!”
FOUR SUCCESSIVE TITLES
Sing’s “insider knowledge” certainly helped Herberger, who initially shared a Spiez hotel room with his “attache” as well as the benefit of his experience as a manager. Sing was in charge of Young Boys from 1951 to 1966 and he led the club to four successive league titles between 1956 and 1959 – a remarkable feat that to this day has never been matched in Swiss football. The German was also the perfect candidate to keep tabs on possible future opponents at the 1954 FIFA World Cup™ by taking in matches such as Switzerland v. Austria (5-7) and Hungary v. Brazil (4-2).
The excellent relationships that Sing had forged in his adopted homeland also helped West Germany to stun the football world. Before the final in Berne, for example, it was Sing who ensured that the Germans, who like so many footballers were a superstitious bunch, were given their preferred dressing room number 2. Sing’s good name, and 20 francs of “pocket money”, were no doubt decisive influences on stadium manager Walter Bronimann’s decision.
Sing watched the final from a vantage point directly behind the team bench, and now, looking back, he has no doubt that scoring two early goals (Puskas in the 6th minute and Zoltan Czibor in the 8th was far from ideal for Hungary. “They had already beaten us 8-3 in the group stage,” he explains. “Herberger hadn’t played his strongest team in that game, but it all added up to a little bit of arrogance.”
Goals from Max Morlock in the tenth minute and Helmut Rahn in the sixteenth levelled the game at 2-2. “It was relatively quiet in our dressing room at half-time,” recalls Sing. “Remember, this was a World Cup final. Everything was on the line. That is why the older players, like Fritz Walter for example, thought ‘we can beat the Magical Magyars today!’.”
And so they did. After Rahn had given the Germans the lead in the 84th minute, there was still enough time for Puskas to score again, although English referee Bill Ling disallowed the goal for offside. Yet still the game was not over and German goalkeeper Toni Turek incredibly saved an “unstoppable” close-range effort from Czibor, prompting radio commentator Herbert Zimmermann to dub him a “football god “. And then, finally, it was all over. West Germany had sensationally won the World Cup.
Sing went on to manage 1860 Munich and VfB Stuttgart in the German Bundesliga as well as various clubs in Switzerland before retiring in 1980 after a spell at FC Zurich.
Today, the 91-year-old still watches as much football as he can on television. He no longer goes to matches himself though, describing it as “too tiring”. He is naturally looking forward to this summer’s European Championship in Austria and Switzerland, even though he will not be drawn on who he thinks will win. Even before the recent match between Germany and Switzerland, Sing merely said: “I still think like a manager so I am not shouting for anybody. May the best team win.”