Quote:tens of millions of dollars can buy a lot of rosetta stone lol.

 

in all seriousness i do agree that it pretty essential to be able to speak the language of the country in which you are coaching. i was reading where his main assistant knows English. i'm one who tends to be torn, a little when it comes to true manager influence on a club. personnel decisions as far as when to play people, subs, and transfers obviously is something they effect directly. But once everything is in place, it's not like they call plays 50-70 times a game like a coach in the NFL. it's really up to the players at that point. diego seems to be a little more influential than most once the game starts, but really, a managers job is call 3 subs and stand up a few times if things aren't going according to plan. Maybe thats just me but every time i see one of the managers trying to get the attention of one of his players, i think back to when i played and remember every time my  coach would do crap like that, i would just look at him like "no [BAD WORD REMOVED], im playing the same game your watching" lol. IMO managers are the scape goat if things are not right, which kind of sucks for them.

I've known times where a player has taken matters into his own hands, scored a goal, won a game and still been fined or benched for the next game from going against the 'play book', if you like.

 

'Old school' managers have a lot of say over team dynamics. It's all in the job title.. Normally if a Soccer Team have a Head Coach, they normally have a 'Director Of Football' too. This means that the coach coaches the team on and off the pitch, but the DoF sorts out the logistics and transfers etc. If they have a 'Manager' then they tend to do all of this rolled into one.

 

You're right about Diego Costa though, he has a lot of influence as soon as he steps over that white line... whether it's all good or not.. well that remains to be seen, for me the jury is still out.

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