Soccer: Rollercoaster ride all part of life as a football coach

Ricki Herbert. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It wasn't too long ago that Ricki Herbert was appearing among various lists of top 10 managers around the world. It might have been a stretch given his lack of top-level club coaching experience but it showed the impact he made with the All Whites' incredible run at this year's World Cup.

England's reputed 4-4-2 Magazine even nominated him as their manager of the World Cup ahead of the likes of Bert Van Marwijk, Vicente del Bosque, and Joachim Loew.

He was a man apparently in demand and was in talks about joining Avram Grant at English Premier League club West Ham as one of his assistants.

There was widespread relief when he recommitted to New Zealand and the Phoenix as debate went on about whether the All Whites and Herbert deserved a Halberg Award.

Fast forward four months and Herbert is under attack from all angles. On the Yellow Fever website, there's a forum topic 'Coaching angst - sack Richie' [sic] 50 pages long.

It's been going on for nearly three months and opinion is divided on Herbert's abilities as a coach and even who should take over if he gets the chop.

Too conservative, too loyal, tinkers too much, too nice, doesn't relate to his players, too defensive, World Cup hangover, not passionate enough ...

If a week is a long time in politics, it can be a lifetime in football. Four months ago, many wanted to canonise him. Four days ago, he was cannon fodder.

"It's normal," Herbert says. phlegmatically. "It's what happens in football."

It's what happens in top-level sport. He might sound dispassionate now but it would be disingenuous to suggest recent criticism hasn't affected the 49-year-old. He doesn't enjoy it and many believe he takes it too personally, is too defensive.

Some of the pressure mounting on him has lifted with Wellington's 2-0 defeat of the Melbourne Heart and 2-2 draw with the Victory but it might be only a temporary reprieve and Herbert knows it.

The path of the rollercoaster football managers climb onto isn't ever known.

"Sometimes you feel like you're not allowed to have an opinion," Herbert says before last night's match with the Melbourne Victory. "Everybody else can have one but when you have one, they say you can't take the criticism.

"I would love to know the manager who sits somewhere in fantasy land that gets everything right. Have I got some things wrong this year? Yeah, I probably have. I'm not hiding behind that. I have made mistakes. If it was easy, why would Chelsea lose three out of four games?

"I have never doubted my abilities. If you ever got to that stage, you shouldn't be doing the job. I'm very strong on how I do things and I stick to that. I'm not going to wobble because somebody less experienced or less informed wants to put a comment in the paper. If I changed because of everyone's comments, I would hate to think where we might be," he says.

Where the Phoenix are, is not where most expected them to be. They were among the pre-season favourites after their run to within one game of last season's grand final. They are still mid-table, with roughly half the season remaining, but haven't played anywhere near their potential and before the defeat of the Heart had won only one of their past seven games.

It hasn't helped that owner Terry Serepisos' empire appears to be disintegrating around him and the uncertainty this puts in the minds of players and staff.

John Adshead knows exactly what Herbert goe goes through. Adshead took the All Whites to the 1982 World Cup in Spain, achieving the "Impossible Dream" as he described it, and earning a place for himself at the top table of football's elite in this country.

He still has people coming up to him in the shopping malls or beaches of Mt Maunganui merely wanting to shake his hand or tell him where they were at certain times of New Zealand's epic campaign.

But he also came under heavy criticism when in charge of the New Zealand Knights for their first season in the A-League. The 1982 campaign will always be the thing he is best remembered for but his reputation took a hit as the Knights imploded around him.

"Football is a business like any other business," Adshead begins in his cerebral way. "On a daily basis, most adults over the age of 18 in this country have to work. And when they do their jobs, whatever they might do, they are going to have good days at the office and bad days at the office.

"Football is no different. We work in an environment where every time a whistle blows for the start of a match, it's virtually your life in their hands. It's a very cynical process.

"Ricki went to a World Cup that was unbelievably successful ... more successful than half the bloody lot who went there. He didn't do anything. It was just a bloody good day at the office."

The problem is, as Adshead explains, expectations have shifted.

"If he can go out and take a team from New Zealand and draw with Italy and look like actually winning games at a World Cup finals, then, Jesus Christ, Phoenix vs Melbourne Victory, piece of cake. That is, unfortunately, how certain people look at it."

Expectations and interest have certainly increased, not only because of the World Cup but also because of what the Phoenix achieved last season.

But Wellington are not the only A-League club struggling to meet expectations - Sydney won last season but are now second-last.

The Victory, who were last season's beaten finalists, are are on the same points as the Phoenix.

Herbert doesn't agree recent times have been the hardest in his career. He points to three years ago, when the All Whites were ranked 156th in the world and it looked like a professional football club would be lost to New Zealand, as more difficult.

"I'm very calm and realistic," he says of his critics. "I'm not going to be negative because football, in my tenure, in my life, has never been where it is today. I don't look on that negatively.

"One of the good things is people are talking about the game. That doesn't have to be positive or negative. They are talking and that's the most important thing for me.

"If people want to have an opinion on teams or losses, then that's their right to do so. Do I value their right to do so? Some, absolutely. Some, absolutely not.

"It's not about being flavour of the month. It's about keeping football where it needs to be. We all have to work pretty hard to do that."

Herbert continues to talk to corporates and schools about the World Cup journey and his diary is full into the New Year. It is something he can talk about with certainty.

What happens to the Phoenix is anyone's guess.