Meet Chelsea's new boss... and he's about to bring £26m striker Falcao with him
By Matt Lawton
Last updated at 8:42 AM on 21st June 2011
Chelsea have decided to gamble on 33-year-old Andre Villas-Boas as their new manager after failing to agree on a structure to accommodate Guus Hiddink alongside a top young coach.
Hiddink has told friends in his native Holland that he will remain with Turkey, leaving Chelsea to discuss the terms of a £13.2million release clause that will enable them to prise Villas-Boas away from Porto.
Reports in Portugal claimed that a deal had been agreed, but Chelsea stuck by a statement confirming only that they hoped to name their new manager in the ‘next few days’.
Even by Roman Abramovich’s standards, it would amount to a shock appointment. Villas-Boas guided Porto to a stunning European and domestic treble this season but he arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2004 as a junior member of Jose Mourinho’s coaching staff, having never played professionally.
Initially Abramovich went for Hiddink, the 64-year-old who had hinted strongly that he was ready to quit Turkey’s national team for the daily involvement of a club job and appeared certain to return for a second stint as manager at Chelsea.
But a problem arose, Sportsmail understands, when Hiddink made it clear that — at his age — he wanted a top coach working alongside him to shoulder the burden. When attempts to lure the likes of Marco van Basten and Steve Clarke proved unsuccessful, they turned to Villas-Boas and it soon became clear he would consider only the job of manager.
Abramovich is aware of the risk that would be involved but has decided to back the younger man in the belief that he can emerge as another Mourinho. At the same time he had concerns Hiddink, because of his age, would prove to be another relatively short-term appointment.
There could yet be a vacancy for Hiddink as director of football, but he has maintained he is interested only in managing, having rejected a similar role at Ajax.
Instead he says he intends to honour his contract with Turkey. He is believed to have held positive talks with the new Turkish FA president and said in his last column in the Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf: ‘There have been a lot of rumours, but I will finish the job in Turkey.’
The arrival of Villas-Boas could see Porto’s leading striker, Colombian Radamel Falcao, also join Chelsea.
It is understood a meeting took place at the Sheraton Hotel in Porto between representatives from the clubs and the release clause in Falcao’s contract — believed to be in the region of £26m — was discussed.
And his agent Claudio Mossi admitted the striker would be interested in following Villas-Boas to Stamford Bridge.
'If Villas Boas is the new coach of Chelsea it is normal for players that are closest to follow him,' said Mossi.
'There are many good strikers at Chelsea, and so Falcao would have to fight for his place.'
But accepting Villas-Boas as their manager could take the Chelsea players some time. After all, he was the guy who handed out the DVDs, once had a scrap with Frank Rijkaard and didn’t seem to be any older than they were. He is actually the same age as Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard, who celebrated his 33rd birthday on Monday.
He was brought in at Chelsea by Mourinho to deliver detailed information on the opposition, providing every player with a video with specific information about their direct opponent as well as the team in general.
Now, however, he is about to be presented as the replacement for 52-year-old Carlo Ancelotti, a double Champions League winner with AC Milan and domestic double winner in the first of two seasons at Stamford Bridge.
One Chelsea insider said: ‘Andre is very clever and fluent in English but I have to say I never saw him as a future Chelsea manager.’
As a footballer, Villas-Boas was inferior even to Mourinho. But when he realised he was never going to be a professional, he seized on an opportunity that suddenly presented itself when Sir Bobby Robson — then the Porto coach — moved into the Portuguese’s apartment block.
It was 1994 and a teenage Villas-Boas made contact by slipping a note under Robson’s door, questioning the former England manager’s decision to leave Domingos Paciencia on the bench.
Coincidentally, Villas-Boas’ Porto beat Paciencia’s Braga in last month’s Europa League final in Dublin.
Robson, it seems, had already met Villas-Boas’s English grandmother, Margaret Kendall, and he challenged his neighbour to support his argument with some statistical evidence.
When the reports came back, compiled from Porto games that followed, Robson was so impressed he invited Villas-Boas to work as a trainee with the club’s youth team coaching staff.
Robson then pulled a few strings at the Football Association — because Villas-Boas was under age — to get him on a coaching course at the English school of excellence at Lilleshall, and it was there that Villas-Boas completed his UEFA C licence.
There were also placements in Scotland and at Robson’s former club, Ipswich Town.
At 21, Villas-Boas concealed his age to land the job of technical director with the British Virgin Islands FA, becoming their coach and overseeing a 2002 World Cup qualifying defeat by Bermuda that was memorable for the five goals scored by Shaun Goater.
From there he returned home to become Porto’s under 19 coach and, when Mourinho arrived as manager a year later, he hired him as an assistant to scout the opposition.
He followed Mourinho to Chelsea and then to Inter Milan, breaking away only when he was offered the chance to become a coach at Academica de Coimbra in October 2009.
His success in guiding them away from relegation and into mid-table safety was enough to secure a move back to Porto, this time as coach, and how he has impressed there.
In his first full season records tumbled in tandem with the opposition, Porto securing the league title by the beginning of April before going on to land the Europa League.
‘I no longer speak with Jose. We spoke a lot when I was at Academica but it’s a little different now.’
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2005992/Chelsea-set-confirm-Andre-Villas-Boas-new-boss.html#ixzz1PtaVqieN
