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  • wonder if that is the case in Spain or Italy, where if you can't speak the language as the manager you're derided in the press and made out to be an idiot that couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag?
    Or whether they are looked at as amusing eccentrics who've come over to try something new?

  • Cruijff, van Gaal and Beenhakker all got torn to bits by the press in Spain back in the day. Problem with the Spanish sports press is that there is no impartiality. You're either a pro Madrid rag or a pro Barça rag.

    In general they do it with a sense of humour but there's plenty of xenophobia in Spain.

  • As not many managers from the UK head over to the continent wasn't sure if the press over there was as dismissive if you blunder through the language as you acclimatise yourself to managing over there.
    Remember Sid Lowe writing about Coleman in Spain, as being viewed as a lovable, if lonely figure out there, who was still able to get something out of his squad. Not sure how Moyes was perceived, and despite his mangling of the dutch accent McClaren isn't as vilified as Ranieri and other foreign managers who don't fit the title winning mould do over here...

    If you've won a couple of titles, you're given the benefit of the doubt and then when it goes tits up, the media boots go in twice as hard...

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