Gary Neville recently embarked on his most challenging adventure yet. After serving as an assistant coach to Roy Hodgson in the England National Team, he is currently serving as the head coach of Valencia CF in Spain’s La Liga.
His first head coaching job has not gotten off to the best of starts, with one win from four games. In an industry where Jose Mourinho can be sacked seven months after leading Chelsea to the Premier League title, Gary Neville needs to start producing results fast.
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Given his stellar career as a player at Manchester United, Neville is accustomed to performing under pressure, and is perfectly equipped to handle the expectations at a club like Valencia. He demonstrated incredible acumen to analyze the game in his capacity as an analyst for Sky Sports, and he has earned all of UEFA’s coaching badges.
However, Neville has never worked in La Liga, he does not speak the language, and he is taking over a team in the middle of the season. This would not be an ideal situation for a seasoned manager, let alone a coach taking his first steps into first team management.
The former United right back seeks to remedy his stuttering start, and has resorted to computer technology in order to connect better with his squad, and convey his tactics in a clearer manner to his players. “There will be an iPad available to each player to show them training sessions and clips from games,” explained Miguel Angel Angulo, a member of Neville’s staff.
Neville already showed great competence with touch screen analysis while working for Sky Sports as a television pundit, and he hopes to transfer that knowledge onto his players, while he learns the Spanish language. “He is doing better than I expected,” said Angulo. “I thought the language barrier would be more of a problem. Gary has already started to speak a little Spanish and he is improving quickly.”
Neville will experience an uphill struggle to put Valencia back on track to qualify to the Champions League in a competitive La Liga. However, if Neville the manager is anything like Neville the player, he will relish the challenge. Don’t bet against him just yet.