Gus Poyet believes the UEFA Pro Licence will aid his return to management.
Being the No.2 at two of English football’s most famous clubs has simply whetted Gus Poyet’s appetite to learn more about the game.
First, Poyet joined his former Chelsea team-mate, Dennis Wise, in the dugout at Leeds United before Juande Ramos took him to White Hart Lane where the duo led Tottenham to League Cup success in 2008.
Poyet has been looking for an avenue back into the game ever since Harry Redknapp replaced Ramos in October last year, and has enrolled himself on the latest UEFA Pro Licence course with a view to being as fully qualified as possible when the call does come.
“This course has been very good because you don’t really know what to expect until you get here,” Poyet admitted.
“You get used to the ‘B’ or the ‘A’ Licence where most of your time is spent on the pitch, and when you’re a coach you use a lot of that on the training ground. But here, it’s the other side of the manager’s role.”
That ‘other side’ entails man-management, contract negotiations, finance, employment law and dealing with the media, and Poyet has been very complimentary of the course so far.
“I think we’ve had some great people coming in and talking to us in the classroom sessions and you interchange information all the time with the coaches and managers on the course,” he revealed.
“They’ve all been involved in the game and you go home with a better knowledge of football. There’s no right or wrong, so it’s about you finding the best way for you to do things.
“When I got closer to 30, I started to pay even more attention in training, trying to find out exactly why we were doing certain things on the training pitch and with the fitness and tactics, and because I'm quite talkative I always used to ask why we were doing things this way. If the answer wasn’t one I expected, I’d take it home with me, analyse it and sometimes I’d realise that it actually made sense. This made me a better player and hopefully it will continue to make me a better coach.”
A marauding midfielder in his day, Poyet says his two stints in the dugout have taught him a lot about the game and he believes his next year on the Pro Licence will teach him even more.
“Being an assistant has been magnificent for me. Juande and Dennis are completely different and they worked in a totally different way. They had different styles, not just in terms of playing but of coaching and managing a team. I know a lot more about the coaching side of the game now than I did three years ago.
“I still might be quite young in terms of management, but I was managed by Victor Fernandez for six years in Spain. When he took over at Real Zaragoza he was quite young and there were a couple of players older than him in the team. We were near the bottom of the table when he came in but we avoided relegation on the last day and went from strength to strength, winning the Copa del Rey (Spanish Cup) and then the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1995 when we beat Arsenal in the Final.
“He has proved to me that age can be irrelevant [in management] and it’s all about your knowledge and how you prepare your team to win.
“I'm trying to get back into football and I'm really looking forward to getting back into it. This course is structured so that it allows people who are both in and out of work to complete it.
“It’s been very enjoyable so far and I'm looking forward to the year ahead. I know I will learn a lot.”
Click here for a full list of this year's Pro Licence intake
TheFA.com was granted access to the University of Warwick for the opening week of the Pro Licence and over the coming days we will publish interviews with both the new intake and the graduation group of 2009.
