As the leaves start to fall and autumn begins to bedeck much of Europe, the cold light of day has exposed a plague running through the game's crispier coaches. It appears to be a plague on all their houses. We have only skimmed over the early moments of October, but some momentous and wonderful faces may already be entering the autumn of their careers in management. Time and tide wait for no man, or it seems no angst-ridden manager.
At the age of 70, the venerable and checkered Luis Aragones, a coach who oversaw Spain's elevation to the European championship in July, looks to be frail in his role in running the Turkish club Fenerbahce. The same could be said of the Bayern Munich coach Jurgen Klinsmann, Tottenham's much-maligned Juande Ramos and Luciano Spalletti of AS Roma. In the quicksand of the management game, these individuals are up to their knees in it.
The timing of a break in the sport's calendar for international football this week enables hoary old club chairmen, that yesterday included the feted former Germany striker Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, to pause, reflect and even gather breath. But their musings and talk of support in troubled times represents a short rain delay amid the gathering storm. Wintery months lie ahead, and a harshness is already descending. It is somewhat easy to trot out cliches in sporting jargon, but it must be said that it is more fruitful to be a lucky coach than a good one. Aragones, it seems, shelled out his wad of good fortune in squeezing out Italy on penalties to progress to the semi-finals of Euro 2008.
He also bet on the club game rather than opting to continue with Spain. So far, he has come up short in Istanbul. Fenerbahce are 12th in Turkey and have gathered only a solitary point from their two games in the Champions League. It is generally regarded as the club's worst start to a season. Players such as the former Brazil defender Roberto Carlos were yesterday emerging from the bleakness to defend the ailing figurehead, but it was perhaps what was not said that proved the most telling commentary on a barmy three months that has allowed Aragones to slip from a heroic figure to the harangued.
The Spain forward Dani Guiza was signed from Real Mallorca in the close season, but he appears to have already entered some kind of period of mourning. "I'll take it very badly if he's sacked," he said. "As for the rest of the squad, I really couldn't say." The Bosporus is not a good place to be a sitting duck, but others are fighting to stay afloat. In Rome, a baldy and frothy Spalletti is trying to make sense of some hairy times for his club.
All the rage in such a scenario is the vote of confidence, but the Roma president Rosella Sensi has surpassed herself by promising a cull of anyone who deals in misplaced talk about the head coach. Roma lost out on the Serie A title to Inter Milan on the final day of last season, but have mustered only two wins from six games this season. A 1-0 defeat to Siena last Sunday has not irrevocably damaged the manager, despite his side occupying a languid 14th place in Italy's prime division.
"If I find out that someone is rowing against Spalletti, I would intervene decisively and I would send them away from Roma," commented Sensi. Roma's home defeat to Cluj in the Champions League continues to be memorable, for all the wrong reasons, but Bayern Munich find solace from preserving top place in Group F ahead of Fiorentina and Lyon. The Bayern chairman Rummenigge feels his side can make up a shortfall of points under Klinsmann that has left them seven points behind the German league leaders Hamburg.
Bayern lost a 3-1 lead in a 3-3 draw with Bochum last weekend. Tottenham fans must continue to hanker after better times, days when Klinsmann led their front line under the management of Terry Venables. They might even wish for the return of Venables, which is hardly preposterous after his links to the Newcastle United position. Klinsmann used to drive a second-hand car around London during his time playing for Spurs to avoid attention, but there seems nothing the disaster-struck Spanish coach Ramos can do to avoid adverse publicity. He has recently started to speak English in press conferences, but his communication with his players is under the most scrutiny.
The Tottenham sporting director Damien Comolli commands transfer policy at White Hart Lane and continues to have a belief in a coach who was brought in to replace Martin Jol after his unsatisfactory opening to last season. Tottenham have only two points from seven Premier League games. They are bottom of the league. They can only go up, but there is a fear that they will not be good enough to escape the status quo.
"The only thing I can say is that everyone at the club, the staff and the players, are working very hard to turn things around and to bring positive results," said Comoli. With every passing defeat, frazzled historians have to delve further into the record books to clarify the extent of the club's malaise. Hull's 1-0 win at White Hart Lane has been confirmed as the their worst start to a league season since 1912. That was a year in which the Suffragettes went on the rampage in London's West End and the Titantic sunk on her maiden voyage.
For all his good intentions, Ramos is facing sinking and drowning. @Email:dkane@thenational.ae