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| Chelsea Interim Manager Roberto Di Matteo |
A bit of a twist for this article to try and intertwine the worlds of football and rugby. With a short introduction, earlier this season Chelsea sacked manager Andre Villas-Boas and replaced him with Roberto Di Matteo who had little more than a two year stint at West Bromwich Albion under his belt. Di Matteo was placed in 'interim' charge, like expected with Lancaster, Di Matteo was in place simply to carry the team to the end of the season. But, he did more, he ignited confidence and led Chelsea to the double winning the FA Cup and guiding Chelsea to their first ever European Cup. Inside the football world, there are calls to make Di Matteo the full time coach and we at Rugby Review felt it would be nice to draw comparisons between Di Matteo and Lancaster.
When looking at Lancaster, we see three things. Confidence, stability and results. In terms of coaching these things are vital, Lancaster installed confidence in his team, installed stability following the failed Johnson regime and achieved results far beyond what was expected of him such as an away win against France and a forward pack destruction of a strong Ireland side. These things managed to secure Lancaster the England job, something which few predicted when he was originally installed as Interim coach.
Now we look at Di Matteo. Has he installed confidence? There is no need to look much further than Fernando Torres for this. The £50 million horror show had done nothing under AVB managing to miss a hilarious open goal against Machester United (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vdlwlUosHI). However, under Di Matteo Torres scored 7 goals, including a hat trick against local rivals Queens Park Rangers and a dramatic last minute goal against Barcelona (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReK1waJFhLI- complete with Gary Neville goalgasm). On this evidence Di Matteo like Lancaster definitely installed confidence into Chelsea, even managing to get horror story Torres scoring.
Stability? Honestly something Chelsea have been lacking. With a thirty something manager, Villas Boas was unable to control the heavyweights of his team such as Lampard, Terry, Cole and Drogba. The Napoli game away when all of these players were left out of the starting team showed a genuine lack of stability, simply Villas Boas didn't understand the club or players within it. In contrast Di Matteo is a Chelsea legend, winner of FA and League Cups in his six year playing career at the London club. His experience gave him respect in the Chelsea dressing room and it was reciprocated allowing the experienced names in the club to take more control and play the way they wanted to. Under the ineterim manager there was no talk of a dressing room revolt and rumors of a marginalised Lampard disappeared. Stability was an important asset to the Lancaster regime. Although taking a different apprroach, Lancaster built a new code of respect among the players and picked on form and not due to the name of the player. Moreover, he acted quickly to remove Danny Care and Delon Armitage from their respective squads when they acted outside the codes of the England team, showing there was no name too big to axe if they did not conform to the 'New England' way. Hence we can see similarities in the building of stability between the two Interims.
Results- the most important part of a mangers job. Di Matteo's results speak for themself, an FA Cup and the first ever Champions League title in Chelsea's history. Football pundits have been calling for Di Matteo to become manager simply for this. Stuart Lancaster as well led his call for the full time job with results. 3 away victories, the first England coach to do so in the Six Nations history as well as a narrow loss to eventual winners Wales and a fiercely contested win against Ireland set Lancaster apart as the outstanding candidate. At the same time the limitations appear similar between the two. Di Matteo and Chelsea have been criticised for boring 'men behind the ball' football whilst Lancaster has been berated by pundits such as Stuart Barnes for playing an unimaginative Saracens-esque style of rugby. Indeed it is here where any analysis of Di Matteo becomes counter-factual. Ultimately Di Matteo was a pro-footballer, he is not stupid and knows that Chelsea have not been pretty. Equally Stuart Lancaster understood the same thing about the England team, seeking the services of maverick Kiwi attack coach Wayne Smith, before settling on Mike Catt to set alive the attack game. The Barbarians match last Sunday indicated a more attacking style of rugby not seen in the Six Nations period. To relate back to Di Matteo, it would be no stretch of the imagination to see him extending the attacking game of Chelsea if given the full job, he does seem to be close to signing the exciting young Belgian Eden Hazard to galvanise Chelsea, therefore there are more similarities we can see between Lancaster and Di Matteo.
Ultimately, these two men are similar. If Chelsea were to take the same objectivity that the RFU took to Lancaster, Di Matteo would get the job. It would be important for Ambramovich to look at the England rugby side and the confidence they are now playing with and how far the squad have come together. Looking at Di Matteo he shares many of the qualities of Lancaster and given how successful Lancaster has been thus far I would certainly advocate Abramovich to strongly consider Roberto Di Matteo for the full time job.
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