KEY POINTS:
On the eve of the biggest challenge of his coaching career, Waitakere United's Chris Milicich had a comforting word for New Zealand Football Championship coaches, like Auckland City's Colin Tuaa, who find themselves in the wilderness.
Tuaa resigned on Sunday, just as Milicich and United were headed to Japan for Fifa's Club World Cup.
"Those who haven't been in a position to coach a team, at whatever level, don't realise what goes on," said Milicich. "No one is more disappointed with a poor performance than the coach. I feel for any coach who finds himself out of work. It is an untenable position.
"Coaching can be the greatest job in the world but at other times it can be very, very difficult. It can be incredibly intrusive. It is a situation where everyone has an opinion. The coach is often seen as the easy target."
Milicich could well wake this morning to find himself again on the receiving end. Anything but a top-drawer showing against Adelaide United in the tournament opener would again see fingers pointed at the beleaguered coach.
If the team wins it will be, according to the fans, the players who have done the job.
For Milicich, this second trip to a tournament which has drawn the champion clubs of the world, including Manchester United, is the chance to again see the best - a further step on the road to his dream of one day coaching professionally.
He recently turned his back on a 27-year career in advertising to throw himself full-time into preparing "his" team for this tough assignment. His sights are now set on life, sometime, beyond the NZFC.
Now among the most qualified coaches in New Zealand - he has joined All Whites/Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert as one of a few with a Uefa A licence (that took him to England twice over a two-year period, away from the NZFC for a year and cost him $32,000) - Milicich will consider other options.
"I'm a team coach," said Milicich. "I need to be coaching week in, week out. I would love to coach a New Zealand team. I feel I have a coaching record which speaks for itself. In 12 years I have been coaching, my teams have finished seventh once and third once. In all other years they have finished first or second."
Now in his second stint with Waitakere after coaching the team in the first NZFC season before taking time out to do his coaching badge and take Eastern Suburbs for a season, Milicich knows that when his time is up at Waitakere, he may be forced to look offshore.
His career has gone full circle - from playing midget soccer with Ellerslie as a 5-year-old to sitting in the seat at Tokyo's National Stadium, which, in a few days, is likely to be graced by Manchester United's legendary coach, Sir Alex Ferguson.
After playing under Dave Taylor at Mt Wellington - he rates the former international as his best coach - and alongside players like Noel Barkley and Dave Witteveen (who he rates as the best he played with), Milicich, by then an established goalkeeper, was forced to call it quits when he fell on the ball and severely dislocated his shoulder.
"At age 28 I gave it [playing] away," said Milicich. "I worked with Dave Witteveen as a goalkeeping coach and then assistant at Ellerslie before taking over two years later. I then went through the coaching courses, the first under Ken Dugdale and Sandy Davie, and took it from there."
There have been the usual ups and downs, but Milicich counts himself lucky in being given the chance to make a second trip to the big show.
Few have had such a chance. It is one he truly savours and he hopes that when he wakes up this morning, he does so with no regrets.
