Can Fantasy Become Reality?

by Wyldbore  4/09/2013 | 6:23 1 Posted in Best Stuff, Funny Shizz, Other Stuff 

For those of us who suffer an addiction to Football Manager, a condition as incurable as man flu, will know the feeling well.  It is the strange belief that because of your skills on the laptop, and in spite of your complete absence of appropriate experience, surely you could manage a real football team and take it to the top.

Can succeeding in reality help you get a real life football managers job?  Let’s take a look at those who thought it could…..

Won Jae Yang (Bath City)

Won Jae Yang was a 17 year old student from Korea when he thought he would try his luck at obtaining the Bath City job.  He was so obsessed with wanting the Bath City manager’s job he emailed them over 100 emails asking to replace manager Adie Britton.  Within each of his emails, he goes into detail about what the manager should of done during each game to win it.
Bath City has decided to publish some of the letters which Won Jae Yang sent them, here’s a snipet from one of them: -

“Hello. My name is Won Jae Yang from Korea. The reason why I am sending you an e-mail is because I want to be Bath City’ Manager. On its last game, I believe that the Bath City’ played well but has not 1played to its full potential. The c urrent ranking shows you that. Honestly, I do not understand Manager, His tactic fluctuates harshly. He does not satisfy Bath City’s passion.”

Won Jae Yang currently refers to himself as the Honorary Director of Tactics for Bath City FC.

John Boileau (Middlesbrough)

Back in 2005, John Boileau had a CV that had seen him take Nuneaton Borough from the Conference North to the Championship in eight seasons and also won the Swedish top flight with small club Kalmar FF.  Ok, it was on Football Manager but still a feat nonetheless.  So with this experience behind him, In 2006 John thought he would apply for the Middlesbrough managers job (this was when Middlesbrough were a Premiership team).

John sent his letter and a CV to Middlesbrough Football Club chairman Steve Gibson and was honestly hoping to be invited for an interview.  In his letter, the 25-year-old, from Rugby in Warwickshire, jokingly said he could manage the Premiership football club after becoming proficient at the Football Manager computer game.

Middlesbrough saw the funny side of this letter and responded by saying: -

“You were of course the outstanding candidate but we decided against your appointment.  Quite frankly we were of the opinion your tenure with us would have been short-lived, as your undoubted talent would result in one of the big European Clubs seeking your services.”

John is still waiting for his first real life manager’s job.

Mac Wilson (Doncaster Rovers)

Football managers are getting younger and younger these days with Karl Robinson of MK Dons the current youngest league manager at 32 years old.  Mac Wilson nearly took this crown from Karl Robinson to become the league’s youngest manager at only 8 years old.

His letter was received by Donny chairman John Ryan back in January 2013 after Dean Saunders was shown the exit.  John Ryan was so impressed with Mac’s letter and positivity as he stated he would get Doncaster Rover’s into the Premier League within three years!  John Ryan decided to give Mac and ring and ask him to come down, have a look around, meet the players and have an interview.

Sadly, Doncaster Rovers went with a 57 year old in the form of former Wales Under 21 manager Brian Flynn.

Don’t let the above three unsuccessful stories put you off though as just like all fairy tales, there is a happy ending and prove that dreams do come true……

Vugar Huseynzade (FK Baku)

In November 2012, FK Baku of the Azerbaijani Premier League hired Vugar Huseynzade in an advisory role.  Since then, Vugar, a 21-year-old Azerbaijan-born, Sweden-based student is now been appointed manager of the club’s ‘A’ side (reserves).  His appointment was solely down to his strength of his Football Manager resumé.

Huseynzade has no actual managerial experience and was fresh out of Business School, with a month or two’s work experience at an American sports agency.  FK Baku initially hired the Baku-born student based solely on being impressed by the knowledge of the game Vugar applied in setting up and running his Football Manager team.

Eight months down the line and FK Baku have decided that Huseynzade is the man to whip their ‘A’ side into shape having been without a manager for two whole years since previous incumbent Kamran Ismayilov upped and left.

Huseynzade was reportedly appointed ahead off former Marseille and France legend Jean-Pierre Papin (crazy!).

Since his appointment, Vugar still tries to relates the real game to Football Manager.  Here are of his classic lines: -

“We have big game tmo and I need to get off to good start, so I’ll save the game now; if I lose, I switch it off and try again.”

“I just stormed out of the press conference. I didn’t have a multiple choice answer sheet to use to reply to their questions.”

“I don’t need scouts. I just use Player Search to find my targets.”

“I told the board when interviewing that team talks are a strong point of mine. I have over four different team talks at my disposal.”

It just shows that there is hope and being a good manager on Football Manager does pay off.  Not sure about you lot, but I’m getting my CV up to date for those reserve teams in the Maldives maybe or failing that I’ve heard good things about Bali in the Indian Ocean.