Arguably the nicest boss in all football by all accounts
Remembering Sir Bobby Robson....
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Until watching the documentary I did not know how fluent Ronaldo(O Fenômeno) was in English. Sort of surprised me since he never played in England.
He is my 2nd favorite manager of all time, right after saf.
He was pure class.
He was pure class.
1 of life's ( not just football's ) true gentlemen. Sadly missed in this current era of inflated egos.
Lovely fella.
Lovely fella.
Terrific manager and all round good guy.
I think he was treated abysmally by both Barca and Newcastle. And even worse by England and the red tops. The media were just as bad in the late 80s if not worse. Scumbags.
I think he was treated abysmally by both Barca and Newcastle. And even worse by England and the red tops. The media were just as bad in the late 80s if not worse. Scumbags.
It’s a bit damning on British football management that he and Sir Alex are the only worthy British managers to be in the highest echelon of football managers from the past 25 years.
But yeah, he seemed like a great guy and I’d have loved to have had someone like him in the post Sir Alex era. I used to know a Sunderland fan who told me that while he and his fellow Sunderland friends absolutely hated Newcastle, they liked Sir Bobby when he was Newcastle manager.
EDIT: crucially left out the 25 years bit
But yeah, he seemed like a great guy and I’d have loved to have had someone like him in the post Sir Alex era. I used to know a Sunderland fan who told me that while he and his fellow Sunderland friends absolutely hated Newcastle, they liked Sir Bobby when he was Newcastle manager.
EDIT: crucially left out the 25 years bit
Jock Stein? Sir Matt Busby? Joe Fagan? Bob Paisley?
He's a great man, no question.
I'll always remember him, on being asked about Johnathan Woodgate being pictured out on the town one weekend, saying something about not minding him 'out jitterbugging' as long as he did the business on the pitch and in training
. You'd never get a manager making remarks like that these days, and more's the pity.
I'll always remember him, on being asked about Johnathan Woodgate being pictured out on the town one weekend, saying something about not minding him 'out jitterbugging' as long as he did the business on the pitch and in training
. You'd never get a manager making remarks like that these days, and more's the pity.A true gentleman on and off the pitch. He will always be held in high esteem
Sir Bobby was a great person on and off the field. A true gentleman.
Brian clough squeezes in at 25 years bracket. The ones you listed go further back in time.
Sir Bobby was a great person on and off the field. A true gentleman.
Wasn't their a film recently made about his season at Barca or is the Netflix doc the same thing?
Edit:
This is it....more than a manager. Is this what you guys watched?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079FLY...=aud-543776533562:pla-459130089358&th=1&psc=1
Edit:
This is it....more than a manager. Is this what you guys watched?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079FLY...=aud-543776533562:pla-459130089358&th=1&psc=1
Can you post any particular memories of Porto under Robson? Would love to read them.
Robson’s Newcastle team from 2001 to 2003 was fantastic to watch. Great players but not quite strong enough to win anything.
I don't remember many specifics in terms of gameplay, etc, as I was young and just gaining an interest in football, but his stay here was amazing.
He was sacked in the middle of his second season by Sporting, I don't know exactly why, as they were first in the table at the time. They hadn't won the league for some 12 years and wouldn't win it in another 6 so it sounds like a terrible decision, but I assume there were conflicts of a personal nature or something like that, as it makes zero sense otherwise.
Porto insta-signed him. He came with Mourinho, whom Sporting had signed as his assistant, arguably because he spoke good English and could double as a translator for Sir Bobby. We were third by then and would go on to overtake Sporting and finish second in the league, behind champions Benfica (their last title for the coming 11 years). We also won the Cup final against Sporting, so they were already feeling the pain of sacking him.
We had been Champions the season before so we were in the Champions League, and Sir Bobby got to guide us in the second half of the competition. I remember vividly a great 5-0 away at Werder Bremen that qualified us for the semi-finals. To this day I don't understand how such a ridiculous thing was possible, but the CL semi-finals at the time were one-leg only, in a non-neutral ground
We lost 3-0 at Nou Camp to Barcelona. I think this format only lasted one season, absolutely nuts.The following season would start in tragedy, as one of our main players, midfielder Rui Filipe, died in a car crash just a few days after the season started. He was 26 and had just scored the league opening goal. I don't remember his reaction at the time, but in a later interview Sir Bobby remembered this as the worst moment of his career as a manager, and an event that cast a dark shadow in his memories of what had otherwise been four great years in Portugal.
We were very strong during that season, losing very few points, but Sporting, managed by Queiroz IIRC was strong too and were very close the whole way, most of the time just one point or two behind (last season in which victories were worth 2 points). The title decider was eventually played in Sporting's home ground. We won and were champions there, again Bobby Robson got one over Sporting. One a side note, that game was also tragic, and shouldn't have happened on that day. Before the game started a balcony collapsed and killed two Sporting fans and injured many others. Emotions were stupidly high, imagine that Porto's doctor, one of the first responders to the tragedy was actually stoned by enraged Sporting fans. Whoever was in charge decided the game should proceed though, and the rest is history. We won 1-0 with a penalty, having had an outrageously wrongly disallowed goal before.
Of his third season here (second complete) I don't remember much, just that it was an easy league run for us, who were clearly becoming far too strong for our internal opposition. Sometime during the season he went on leave for cancer treatment for a couple of weeks, a problem that would never go away and would ultimately kill him many years lately.
I was devastated when he left at the end of the season. He was such a calming presence, a gentlemen, with a cleverness and humour in speech that you wouldn't fin in Portuguese managers of the time, so it was really something different for us. Nevertheless, he left us in excellent shape, we would go on to win three more leagues in a row after he left. We had never won more than two, and were now establishing a record breaking streak.
Hence why I say my "career" as a fan couldn't have started better. To know that we would go on to win European competitions on the hands of Mourinho and AVB, just adds a sort of romantic legacy to his presence. In case you don't know, AVB, 17 at the time, was Sir Robson's neighbour in Porto and one day unashamedly approached him to contest some of his decisions as a manager. Sir Robson was impressed by his boldness and knowledge and took him to the club, where he remained for a long time until becoming Mourinho's assistant himself 8 years later.
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I can confirm 99,9% of the things @Arruda mentioned are factually true. Sousa Cintra till this day regrets sacking Robson.
I worked there when he was there, he was lovely bloke on the whole but he had some 'intersting' 1970 views of the world
Another thing I can say when he went for Porto is that on a few months he changed the entire dynamic when he went to replace Tomislav Ivic there. They won a away game at Werder Bremen on the Champions League 5:0 with the majority of the lineup being made by players who were developed and raised at Porto Youth sides. Only foreigners were Kostadinov, Timofte, Aloisio and Drulovic. It was before the Bosman ruling started.