Take Me on a Journey

Kids, I sit here as the most successful manager ever to grace the game of football. But it wasn't always this easy, I didn't always have a big house and flashy cars. No, I started out smaller, living in a one bedroom apartment on my own working in a local restaurant studying for my management qualifications, but hey, that's another story.

I started out in the city of Paris, I had lived there for about 5 years and had grown to love this city, however, 2015 was one of the worst years in it's history but we were all united by 1 thing, football. I had always been to watch PSG during my time there, I wouldn't say I supported them, but they were the only decent team on offer at the time. I remember watching players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Angel Di Maria, players you kids wouldn't remember.

It was also around this time I met your mother. She was studying in Paris as well, she was studying Art, which I guess is kind of the typical subject of this city.

Now back to my management, of course you guys don't know how successful i was, you we're only babies when I decided to retire, but people in the sport still talk about me all around the world, I am a legend in the city of Paris. I was known for being ruthless and strict and players respected me for that, and I think that was what helped me be so successful.

About a month after I met your mother I learnt about this small team in Paris, named simply Paris FC, a small part time club who had never had any success and were always in and around the lower leagues. They hadn't had a manager in a year and were desperately looking for a manager. I remember thinking this was my chance. I came down to their next training session where I met their chairman, I can't quite remember his name, this was a long time ago but I told him I was studying to be a manager and I saw his eyes light up. He asked me if for a season I'd like to coach the lads of Paris FC and I said I'd be delighted and that was it, I had made it into the managerial world.

So kids, Let Me take you on a Journey.

I always kinda hope that Paris FC do well in my save, best of luck, I will be following!

That night I took your mother on a date to the Eiffel Tower, as we had both never been up it during our time in Paris. I still remember that day, it was so crowded it had taken us ages to get through the queue to go up. I was trying my hardest to hold back the good news until we had got the very top.

We spent hours there, the skyline of Paris is simply amazing. We then reached the top where I told your mother the great news about getting my first job in Football. She looked just as happy as me, and everyone around us starting clapping as they thought I had proposed.

We then went to a local bar to celebrate... Your mother got me so drunk I didn't even know what was happening, but that's another story.

So I had a managerial job, my first chance to make history but I had still had a lot of work to do on myself. I was going into a group of people I had never met before, can you guess how scary that is? What type of manager was I going to be? What do I wear? What do I say? I had to get everything right to earn the players respect.

But at that time Paris FC weren't the worldwide phenomenon that they are today, no, they had only just become a professional team, promoted for the Third Division and one of the favorites to get relegated during the season I had taken charge, but I knew I wasn't going to let that happen.

I just didn't realize at that time how important I would be in the world of football, and the history of football as a whole.

I remember my first day at the club, when I walked through the doors of the Stade Charlety I felt like I had walked into something special. I was met at the front by the Paris FC board who just looked like a typical bunch of businessmen. It was a really strange experience, I didn't really know what to say or what to do so I just did what most people do in those situations, smile and laugh.

The board then took me out on to the pitch where the Paris FC players were training. They seemed like an ok bunch of lads, but were a long way from the current Paris FC squad. I can only remember a few names from that first original squad with Alexis Thebaux and Loic Poujol being the names that come to my mind. But I remember as soon as I saw them I knew I had to make a lot of changes for this club to be successful, everything they did from the way they trained to the way they ate was wrong, I was to be the guy to change all that, and soon other teams started following my ideas.

Back in those days Paris FC weren't really blessed with much money, in fact they had no money at all, and were losing a lot of money every season. But I ignored all of that, I had one goal with this club, I wanted to put it in the history books.

The big team of France at that time was the other Paris based club, Paris Saint Germain. They were blessed with more money than sense, spending ridiculous amounts of money of players. I swore to myself I would never be that type of manager. I wanted the kind of players who were willing to fight for the team and give it their all. I was always that type of manager, I demanded respect from my players and in return I gave them my respect. I knew we weren't the most talented squad in the league so we had to beat our opponents in other ways. That is the key to being a good manager, you have to know your weaknesses and you have to know your strengths and use them to your advantage if you want to be successful.