Diamond Geezers, Episode 55: We’re All (Technically) Going On A European Tour
Michael Dobson has moved to Leicester for a whopping £2m in one of the most disappointing weeks of my Rushden & Diamonds managerial career, where we’ve also been poleaxed 3–1 by Wolves and drawn Dundalk in the first round of the UEFA Cup. I guess I’m glad we avoided the likes of PSG, Fiorentina and Barcelona, but I was hoping to take the loyal Rushden Ultras on a chartered ferry to somewhere a bit more exotic than Ireland. Then again, they should feel comfortable in the surroundings of St Patrick’s Church, the Castletown River, and Mullens Traditional Takeaway. If anything, it’s a home away from home. Let’s hope their football team are as accommodating as their town centre… though a glance at their tactics suggests they’re not going to be.
There is also some good news to follow the bad, as I’m named Manager of the Month and Byron Bubb’s 9.0 average gets him Player of the Month for Division One. He deserves it, I’m not sure I do; all I’ve done is signed Roberto Baggio and crowbarred him into my starting team at the expense of my goal difference. Meanwhile, Jermain Defoe wins Young Player of the Month on the same day that West Ham reject my £4.1m offer for him; his release fee is £9.5m, which I can’t afford, but I suspect would be needed to pry him from my league rivals. My scouts in South America recommend Kaká, Matías Vuoso and Fernando Cavenaghi — all great shouts, but outwith either my price range or work permit likelihood. We’re going to need to pay players £30k+ per week before the DWP are going to approve those kinds of signings. Hint hint, board.
In other news, Fabio Gatti and Rhys Weston collect further caps for Italy U21s and Wales respectively, which is excellent news as I’m very excited about the potential of both. However in differing fortunes, Cherno Samba scores in a 2–0 win for my reserves against Coventry, but also tears his calf and puts himself on the shelf for two months. Get well soon, biggun. We might well need you before too long.
The rest of the squad are aboard Chugger and trundling around the Midlands for the trip to meet the Sky Blues’ senior team at Highfield Road. They’ve made a strong start to the season, sitting in 3rd place after four games, but I notice that despite the presence of Lee Hughes and Julian Joachim up front, they’ve only scored five goals — but they’ve also conceded just three, thanks to my forthcoming worst nightmare Magnus Hedman in nets. They are not a particularly youthful side, but make up for it with stone cold graft: we’ll need maps and compasses to navigate around Lee Carsley, Paul Telfer, Marc Edworthy, Phil Charnock and Youssef Chippo. They do have Gavin Strachan, Jay Bothroyd and Gary McSheffrey in reserve, but I don’t expect to see any of their young guns play; instead, I imagine we are going to be in for a very long, very rough afternoon.
To that end, I decide I need to go back to a midfield three, but make a brave decision with it — instead of chopping Baggio from AMC, I decide to advance the Mahouvé Dam into the middle, with an instruction to drop in front of the back four when we’re defending. I’m hopeful that having Marcel in the centre will give us some extra oomph going forward, while still allowing him to collect the bone chippings of opposition forwards when they’re foolish enough to counter-attack. Otherwise, my team is a familiar one; I decide to try Javan and Benjani together up front because, if all is true in the world, they should be a killer partnership.
The first commentary sees Benjani settle my early nerves by gathering the ball outside the area, bursting into it, and instead of shooting, teeing up Alexander Farnerud to smash a low drive past Hedman to give us the lead. There seems to be some sort of understanding between the two, and I’m very happy to have an early advantage to ease my post-Wolves dread. After that, the game is a back and forth battle that sees Pinheiro make a couple of excellent saves from Joachim, while Hedman pushes away an effort from Baggio. Mahouvé, meanwhile, seems to be relishing his new midfield role, beasting into headers and nicking the ball away from several Coventry midfielders. It’s actually one of his interceptions that ends up with Benjani, whose one-two with Baggio leads to a pass into Farnerud, and the Swede looks up and lifts the ball into the path of the onrushing Byron Bubb to catch a sweet half-volley that thunders past Hedman and into the roof of the net!
It’s 2–0, and I feel like I can relax a little; while I am concerned that Baggio can’t get off a 6 and Julian Joachim is repeatedly getting the better of Lucic, Coventry seem to be all bark and no bite. I’m shuffling pieces around on my tactical magnetic whiteboard as the break approaches — should I take off Baggio, who isn’t influencing things as I’d like? — but just as I’m distracted, and right on the stroke of half time, Paul Telfer beats Victory in the air and gives the ball to left-back Tomas Antonelius, who steadies himself before hitting a rocket of a shot that clangs in off Pinheiro’s far post to drag City undeservedly back into the game.
I feel dizzy from all the sucker punches we’ve endured over the last few games, and so while I’m tempted to be a little more conservative in the second half, I decide ultimately to leave the team as it is. Despite sitting on a 6, Baggio is a beautiful enigma who can create something out of nothing, and his proficiency over set pieces is irreplaceable — so I do nothing except be a bit passive-aggressive with my defenders for their inability to contain Joachim, fully expecting him to score within minutes of the restart.
Fortunately I’m wrong, though I will require a quadruple heart-bypass this evening after he beats my entire back four again and again only to find Hugo Pinheiro in sparkling form to deny him — and the one time my Portuguese mammoth is rooted to the spot, Joachim’s shot zings over the bar. We splutter and struggle to the 80th minute, by which time I’ve replaced Baggio with Mad Dog and reverted to my 4–1–3–2, when Mahouvé finds Farnerud in the box, and he crosses for his new best friend Benjani to tuck home our third goal of the day and make the game safe.
Or so I think, because within two minutes David Duke appears in the box to convert an Antonelius cross to reduce the score to 3–2, and moments later, Joachim is wiped out in the box by Lucic! However, our fabulous official, J.P. Robinson, sees nothing untoward and lets the game continue. I’m more sweat than man as we tick into the 89th minute, and there’s still time for Bubb to be taken out in the Coventry area not once, but twice — and twice more, Robinson waves the appeals away. Perhaps he doesn’t want to upset the home fans any further, which in the end is fine by me, because despite yet more hair-raising moments, we’ve come through to beat Coventry City 3–2 in the end. We need to stop doing this. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown by Christmas.
I really need to be more conservative with my setup. All these goals we’re conceding isn’t going to do us kindly this season, especially in two-legged UEFA Cup ties. I set about fiddling with my team instructions to make my full-backs slightly less adventurous and ensure Mahouvé sits in midfield and focuses on hacking people into large chunks. Wide areas are a problem, and my centre-halves are being overrun by counter attacks. I hope these two adjustments will solve that.
Meanwhile, coach Denis Holmark knocks on my door to tell me that he’s promoting another academy prospect to the reserves for my appraisal. Local boy Anthony Brown is brand new goalkeeper to sit under the learning tree of Peter Schmeichel, looks like a good prospect, and can have Decent Young Player terms for a couple of seasons to see how he develops. Welcome, Tony.
I’m not going to get to meet my new charge for a little while, because we’re already on the road to Holyhead, where Chugger looks excited to roll aboard a ferry across the Irish Sea to Dublin — and from there, we make the hour-long drive north to Dundalk for our first ever taste of European football under the floodlights at Oriel Park. Chris Morgan, my Northern Irish scout, tells me that Dundalk play an attacking 4–4–2 despite lots of evidence to the contrary; I suspect I shouldn’t have given him the job of checking on our forthcoming opposition and disregard his advice.
Dundalk are, it has to be said, a very strong defensive unit. All three of their ‘star’ players are D/DMCs, though it’s interesting to note that they have lost both of their opening Irish Premier Division games to the Rovers of Sligo and Shamrock. Jonathan Prizeman appears to be living up to his name with two goals and two assists in his opening four games, so Marcel will be given the task of ripping him in half like a phone book as soon after kick-off as possible.
I decide to stick with the same team that lined up against Coventry. With my tweaked individual instructions, I feel like this formation could be a winner; we just need to find a bit of consistency and rigidity. Both Baggio and Couto are either world-class or anonymous, which hints at their need to adapt to their new teammates, but if there’s one thing they should both be primed and ready for, it’s a big European night. Having seven subs allows me to bring Costacurta and Davies into the squad, but otherwise, we’re completely unchanged personnel-wise. I’m very excited for our first endeavour in the UEFA Cup; the players need no encouragement or team talk from me as they stamp their studs into the changing room floor and burst out into the cool evening air. Roar greets me in my technical area with a six-pack of Jameson’s that I think he’s put together himself, and we’re underway.
Five minutes are on the clock as Dundalk captain Noel Melvin hauls Baggio down by his shirt and earns the first booking of the day. Robi picks himself up, dusts himself down, and stands over the free-kick. He spots the towering presence of Marcel Mahouvé at the far post and pings the ball directly onto his head, but our Cameroonian powerhouse resists the urge to hit the target and instead nods down for Meysam Javan, left all alone in the box, to clatter home our first ever European goal after just six minutes! And the hits don’t stop — two minutes later, Gareth Crawley is carded for tripping Javan, and Baggio whips the free-kick past the despairing Cathal Warfield in the Lilywhites’ goal, but it clips the outside of the post and goes wide.
Dundalk’s goal is under threat from all sides as Crawley heads a Baggio corner away, but only as far as Byron Bubb. He knocks the ball sideways for Javan, who pauses, looks up, spots Warfield off his line and goes for the chip! WHAT A GOAL! Javan lobs the keeper from the edge of the area, and after 12 minutes, it’s 2–0 to the mighty Diamonds!
Byron Bubb, as usual, is running the show from central midfield, and he tests Warfield with a swerving strike before Baggio lines up another dead ball on the edge of the box — and Warfield is forced to palm away once more. McGuinness then clears off the line from Couto, Warfield saves from Javan, Baggio swings over a corner and Couto rises above everyone to score his first ever Rushden and Diamonds goal, and while Roar and I are doing the Riverdance in our technical area, Baggio gathers from kick-off, feeds Bubb, he finds Javan in the penalty box, and our reigning Player of the Year slams a low drive past Warfield to collect a superb first-half hat-trick and leave the score 0–4 at the break.
Considering our lead, and Benjani’s non-performance so far, I throw Sir Les on at half time and tell him to show this band of Irishmen what he can do — and on 49 minutes, Mahouvé slides a ball into the area, Sir Les gathers, skips past McGuinness and fizzes a low shot across the emerald dew and into the back of Warfield’s net. The game won, I give Costacurta a bow in place of Couto, and let Jamie Davies have a taste of European action, but other than a couple of Dundalk shots that fly off target, there’s nothing more to report. Our debut in the UEFA Cup finishes with a much needed and crushing victory.
Three of their defenders made 13 key tackles between them, which should tell you all you need to know about our dominance in that game. We were all over them, swarming from every direction, and I’m hoping that my tactical shuffling might have been at least partly responsible. I’ll take the credit either way, of course.
Our 5–0 win is the biggest victory of any first leg game in round one, and it’s generally a good day for the British sides — Leicester, Chelsea, Rangers, Hearts and Aberdeen all record victories in their opening encounters, while the titans of Total Network Solutions gain a creditable draw with Servette in one of the most boring football matches of all time.
They might be last on the Eurogoals highlights, but the TNS faithful won’t care one jot. A result’s a result! Now, I’d better get cracking on this whiskey…I wouldn’t want to upset Roar.
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