NO EXPERIENCE, NO WORRIES!

André Villas-Boas became the most expensive coach in football history last week. Chelsea coughed up the €15million required under his release clause and are likely to fork out over £4million a year in wages, not including bonuses.

Although other coaches may earn more, especially Felipe Scholari, whose fee is no doubt paid by some ‘unethical’ Uzbekistani businessmen, there is something very different about the new man at Chelsea – he has never played professional football.

If anyone tells you that you must have played professional sport to coach it, they are one of two people: a professional sportsman or an idiot (and possibly both).

FC Porto went through the 2010/11 season unbeaten; this has only been achieved twice, by Benfica, in 1972/73 and 1977/78. And this is without the likes of Messi, Ronaldo or any other faces you’ll see on cereal boxes or on tv advertising motor oils. In fact Porto are to world football as the “most improved” trophy is to sporting ability.

But Villas-Boas has no professional playing experience. So how is that possible?

These days coaching is less about doing everything yourself and more about managing a team of experienced and knowledgeable professionals. The manager doesn’t need to oversee every pass, shot, or fitness test as he has 487 staff members to look after that for him.

The two most important things a professional coach needs to do is set the right environment for the squad and the staff, while communicating closely with all of them. Couple that with the right decisions on match day and you have one very successful manager. Playing at the top level may help you with making better decisions on match day, but if your staff and players can’t get to match day in the right shape or frame of mind then you may as well be turning up to a gun fight with a knife.

Villas-Boas fits the mould of today’s elite coach perfectly. But what is most amazing about him is he is only 33. He is the youngest manager in the history of the English Premier League and is now in charge of one of the world’s biggest clubs.

Someone once told me that a coach with professional playing experience only needs to do one thing right to gain recognition; a coach with no playing experience needs to do ten good things to gain the same respect. Yet clubs nearly always pick the former player because they have the public persona, rather than coaching ability.

Telling someone they can’t coach professional sport if they haven’t played it is like telling a self made millionaire they have no right to earn money if they weren’t brought up with it.

Ironically, André Villas-Boas is now both.