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Roy Hodgson: 'Sexy football' – that's never really been a description for me

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Manchester City
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he following is an extract from Philippe Auclair's's article from Issue Five of the Blizzard, published in June 2012. The Blizzard is a quarterly football journal available from www.theblizzard.co.uk on a pay-what-you-like basis in print and digital formats.

Roy Hodgson is very good company. He, unusually in English football, is a man with a hinterland, having worked in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, the United Arab Emirates, Norway and Finland as well as England. He speaks five languages and will discuss modern American literature as happily as he will football. On 1 May 2012, he was named England manager. This interview — which dates from before then —offers an insight into Hodgson's methods and core beliefs about the game.

Do you feel you're under-appreciated in England, having worked abroad for so long?

"There aren't many English managers, I suppose, who've had the sort of career that I've had, outside the country. With the amount of money that is going around in the Premier League, not many people are tempted to move abroad. But I'm quite happy with my reputation in England. I don't feel in any way underprivileged. I've now been a manager for 36 years, and only eight of those – not even that, actually, more like six and a half – have been spent in England. So I can't really expect to be as well-known as people who've done nothing but coach in England. It doesn't concern me. And I'm quite pleased that, outside of the country, I managed to forge a reputation which still lives on."

Do you think more coaches should coach abroad?

"People who start a coaching career are frightened to leave their country for fear of being forgotten. Secondly, of course, the type of money they can earn in Scandinavian clubs, for example, or Cyprus, that type of country that could provide a market, is going to be a major disadvantage. But the main disadvantage is that, if they don't succeed abroad, they'll miss out completely and come back to nothing. And thirdly, it takes a bit of an effort to move abroad with your family, to perhaps learn a foreign language so that you can coach in that language and come to terms with a different culture … all of these place an extra burden on a young coach."

Languages don't seem to have been a problem for you?

"I speak five languages: English, Swedish, French, Italian and German. I learnt French at school — and even taught it at a minor level, when we played in South Africa, back in 1973. We had a morning job and in the afternoon, I'd coach for the Northern Transvaal Football Association. When a teaching vacancy came up in that academy, the headmaster came to me and asked me to fill it. I'd just qualified as a Physical Education teacher, but he needed someone to teach French and I got thrown in at the deep end! [laughs] Having said that, when I went to Neuchâtel, in January 1990, it was quite a shock to have to speak French again … but it was French or nothing!

"To be honest, I learnt Swedish mainly out of courtesy. It wasn't a sine qua non of coaching, as the players were so good at English. In fact, they somewhat preferred the coaching and team talk to be in English – it was a bonus for them.

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