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Sir Bobby Robson is one of the best coaches in the world, with a rich coaching career - winning the UEFA Cup with Ipswich Town FC in 1981, later achieving numerous awards abroad training his teams, and in 1990 leading the England national team to the FIFA World Cup semi-finals.
We present the interview of this 71-year-old football genius, dedicated to celebrating the UEFA anniversary. In the interview with "World Soccer" magazine, the coach talks about his first coaching steps in Ipswich and how he managed to practically implement his ideas and achieve success.
"When I finished my playing career in 1968, I decided to become a coach because I was well known and always wanted to be involved in the game, in one way or another.
Need to think about tactics
When I played for England, I was what we call a 'right-half.' I played intermittently for 5 years in the national team, then when Walter [Winterbottom] decided to introduce the 4-2-4 system, along with Johny Hayes, I played in the midfield. Hungary crushed us 6-3 at Wembley Stadium; at that time, we were using the 4-2-4 system. And that made people start thinking about tactics for the first time in English football history.
Ramsey's influence
Then Alf Ramsey became the coach of England, and he saw that if he moved one player back and made the 4-3-3 system, they could dominate the midfield. Others started to copy it, so he moved another player back, and the system became 4-4-2. Now 4-4-2 is the main tactic wherever you go. It's simple but effective - two groups of four.
Little experience
My first serious coaching job was at Ipswich. I had very little experience, and I think the club thought the same of me because I worked completely contract-free for the first eight months! Then I went to the other extreme and signed a 10-year contract.
Own ideas
It was great that I had the opportunity to put all my ideas into practice - proper training schedules and so on. In fact, I wasn't just the team's coach. I was my own coach, and I also paid a lot of attention to youth policy. Now we have these fancy names - Centers of Excellence, Academies, and so on, but all of that can really be described in one word - youth policy: that is, finding young players who have not yet revealed their talent and teaching them to play so that they can take advantage of it.
Two forwards
I used my ideas. We played at Ipswich with two forwards and little Eric Gates just behind them. I always played with four evenly positioned defenders and John Wark in the defensive midfield position. Later I had Frans Thijssen and Arnold Muhren. I didn't have full-backs, but Thijssen and Muhren were such wonderful players that they defended so much area that I didn't need them.
Best team
In 1981, we were voted the best team in Europe. That year we won the UEFA Cup, and we could have won the English league. We had Paul Mariner and Alan Brazil up front and Gates just behind them, and opponents never knew how to deal with him. We came second in the league. We truly deserved to win it. We would have won, if we had had two more players. But we didn't have much money to go out and buy. It wasn't like today when you don't know who to include in the starting lineup."
