Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sacking of Luiz Felipe Scolari and Few Reflections

It has been more than a month, Chelsea sacked world cup winning Brazilian coach Luiz Felipe Scolari following a series of poor performance by Chelsea. Dutch manager Guus Hiddink joined the Blues immediately thereafter and turned around Chelsea’s performance overnight as the Blues are now 7 match winning streak in all competition under the guidance of Hiddink. Well, I asked myself the question many times that what was exactly the reason behind the sacking of Scolari who started off very well in Stamford Bridge?

Different reports out in the media seem to be misleading. Chelsea’s poor show seems to have been instrumental behind the sacking of Scolari who joined Chelsea with lots of promise and hopes last Summer. However, Scolari himself expressed that some of the Chelsea players like goalkeeper Peter Cech, Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba had a big role behind his losing the job. You might find some truth in his statement when you will know that Cech, Ballack and Drogba have recently expressed their extreme happiness under the new coach Guus Hiddink.

Well, do not blame me for making any statement in this regard. Reports even also suggest that the Brazilian coach had a conflict with Drogba which was reportedly forced Chelsea to choose between Scolari and Drogba. However, Chelsea’s assistant coach dismissed any kind of dressing room rift between the two.

Luiz Felipe Scolari has some supporters in Chelsea too. Ashley Cole gives the credit to Scolari for helping him to play his best football for Chelsea ever. In fact, Cole is so impressed that he even considers Scolari as a father figure and Cole has said that he would miss the Brazilian in Chelsea.

I do not know what the exact reason behind his sacking was, but I think, Chelsea should not have sacked him midway through the season because every coach at this level deserves a certain period of time to show what he is capable of. Specially, when someone has the previous record of winning a world cup, you must admit the man has something in him. Like Hiddink, Scolari also started off very well in the season with Chelsea winning a series of games on a row. At one stage, Chelsea was missing most of the first team players through injury and was mainly relying on the reserve bench players. Still, Scolari kept the Blues in the winning run and there were many who got surprised by the ruthless performance of injury-hit Chelsea squad.

I do not believe that only performance can determine class and talent. Scolari is definitely a great coach who not only helps the players on tactics, but also influences them psychologically and helps the players to become confident. Though he has recently been linked with Manchester City, it is not yet confirmed what would be the next destination of Scolari.

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