Chelsea names Scolari as new manager
Jun 16th, 2008 • Coaches • Teams • Transactions
Luis Felipe Scolari has been named by Chelsea as the new manager to suceed Avram Grant. “Chelsea Football Club is delighted to confirm that Luiz Felipe Scolari will be the club’s new manager from July 1, 2008. Felipe has great qualities. He is one of the world’s top coaches with a record of success at country and club level, he gets the best out of a talented squad of players and his ambitions and expectations match ours. He was the outstanding choice. Out of respect for his current role as head coach of the Portuguese national team, and to ensure minimum disruption to this work, there will be no further comment from Chelsea FC nor from Felipe about his new role until his employment with us commences.”
Scolari is currently coaching the Portugese national team in the Euro Cup. While Avram Grant was in no way a bad coach I am sure that Scolari is an excellent choice and will bring a new style of play to Chelsea. Grant also appeared to be rather unexciting and unemotional. The Brazilian International coached the Brazilian national team and won the World Cup in 2002. He also guided Portugal to the Euro Cup finals in 2004 and the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup. He also turned down the opportunity to coach England’s National team in 2006 after Sven-Goran Eriksson was fired. He has also won the Copa Libertadores (South American equivalent to the Champions League) with two different club teams. However, the 59 years old has never coached a European club team.
Chelsea’s keeper Peter Czech welcomed the appointment saying, “He is a manager with great charisma, great experience, great results. I look forward to working with him. For the club to progress further, I think it’s a wise appointment.”
Reportedly his contract will be worth €6 million, though no details have been revealed officially yet. The decision came less than a week after Scolari said, “What’s going to happen to me after Euro 2008 - if I am going to stay or leave - concerns (only) me and I am not going to talk about it now. If I decide to leave or stay, I am only going to make a public declaration at the end of Euro 2008.”
“I think it’s a top-class appointment. They have got a top-class manager. When he was manager of Brazil their emphasis was on attacking style - I think he will bring that into Chelsea football club.” said Ron Harris (former Chelsea player and legend).
Chelsea midfielder Ray Wilkins described Scolari as “A manager of top quality. It appears that he’s up for a challenge. He’s a big guy, he’s charismatic. This will be a breath of fresh air.”
Carvalho also supported the new manager saying “We were all shocked by the news. We heard the rumours but didn’t guess he would be going to Chelsea after the Euros,’ said the 30-year-old. He is a great manager and a big personality. He’s the kind of guy that players respond to and I think we can go forward with him.”
Fellow Portugese player Paulo Ferreira said “I think Scolari is a good manager and he can do a good job there and it will be good for the club.”
lets see how he does… hes got a good record, its true. a more low profile player is gus hiddink but he has a great record of producing amazing teams from nothing
supposedly he said some stuff about ronaldo going to real madrid but ,, it may have been a misquote, i dunno , anyone know if its true or not?
I mean…Avram Grant was a good manager, he looked like Darth Vadar and was extremely solemn. I also think he didn’t produce or encourage very exciting football; the style of game play that chelsea has is not very entertaining; so perhaps it is good to have a new manager.
But whatever i mean the players seem to be looking forward to a change , maybe they’re sucking up so they can get more game time but either way this behavior of sacking a good new manager despite his record is typical of the super rich football owners of today.