Chapter 2 – A New Home
“Great news! I got you an interview in England,” Celine said through the Zoom window.
I smiled. I couldn’t help but imagine taking an English side from wherever they were on the UK Football pyramid to its highest possible position. I envisioned managing in the Premier League one day and lifting that trophy.
“With who?” I finally uttered.
“Dulwich Hamlet. They want to interview you via Zoom. Can you do 4 p.m. your time?”
“Of course! I’ll start preparing.”
“Good. If not, you might not be in Europe much longer.”
“Wait. What?”
“It’s hard finding interviews for you. Unless you’re willing to go to semi-professional team, nobody wants to hire a coach that barely lasted a season in Ukraine’s second division,” she said. “You understand right?”
I gulped. I knew I made Celine’s job harder by resigning from Ukraine with six games to go. But man, I figured I would get another chance somewhere with a professional team.
“But don’t worry too much if this doesn’t work out. You did say anywhere.”
I forgot I said anywhere and knowing her, she would make calls around the world to get me a job. I just didn’t think it would work out. I spoke English and Spanish and now some basic Ukrainian, but moving to another foreign country seemed daunting. Yet, I knew all of it would be for naught if I nailed the Dulwich Hamlet interview.
“Good luck,” she said. “Give me a call afterwards.”
“How did it go?” Celine asked.
I thought it had gone well. I put forth my vision for the club. I reassured them that what occurred in Ukraine was more of an outlier than a pattern. Everything seemed like I was going to get the job.
Then bad news came a few days later.
They passed on me.
I called Celine immediately on Zoom and we discussed what was the next steps.
“How do you feel about Asia? Particularly, India,” she asked.
I had no qualms about moving countries, but India seemed to be a bit foreign. I thought Celine would have some Korean connections, but India was the location she was pushing me to. I didn’t know what to do. But I said anywhere, so I took an interview with Kerala FC in Calicut, not expecting anything but more experience. I thought I would have to go semi-professional and work my way up the long way, taking on part-time gigs to supplement my income.
I had begun searching for work outside of football that would supplement a part-time coach’s salary in a variety of countries: Northern Ireland, Wales, England, Ireland, Norway. If it had a semi-professional team, I was gearing up to apply for it with the list of teams Celine had forwarded me.
Little did I know that fate would want me to go somewhere where I would be uncomfortable. Few days after my interview with Kerala FC, they offered me the job. After discussing it with Celine, we figured it was worth rebuilding my reputation there.
I accepted the job and packed my bags for India.
When I got to India, the apartment I was put in was smaller than the one I had in Ukraine, but it was fine. I didn’t need a ton of space. Besides, this was going to be a brief stop on my journey back to European football. I looked at the training facilities, and they weren’t bad by Indian standards, but they could be better. The team, however, had some holes. OK, it had a lot of holes, but none that I couldn’t fix without signing a few things. The first thing I did was sign a few foreign players in the form of Gao Huaze and Timothy Potteiger to fill a few of the holes in the attacking midfield and goaltending areas specifically. I picked up quite a few Indian-born players to round out the roster since I could only have five foreign players.
After interviewing and meeting the team, I figured the best way to play for my team. I settled on a 4-3-3 formation. The biggest thing I had learned from my time in Ukraine was to let the players learn the formation and learn how to play instead of constantly panicking and tweaking the formation because of how we played. When we lost my debut 2-0 to Delhi FC in the Durand Cup, I didn’t let it bother me. I had to trust the process. It happened to work as we ended up winning our next two games 4-2, 2-0 respectively before being eliminated from the Durand Cup in the quarterfinals in extra time.
The three friendlies after the Durand Cup gave me hop, going 2-0-1, but I didn’t expect to win the next seven games in a row before inexplicably losing a 1-0 game to an inferior opponent. The hot start, however, was enough to put us in first place. Not much ended up changing after that, we only lost one more league game and finished the 20-game season with 14-2-4 to win my first trophy.
When it was all over, I took a breath and felt relieved. The Ukraine fiasco was behind me, and I had officially won a trophy. Now, that’s not to say it was the most challenging league, but I still felt like accomplished. I went back to my apartment and immediately called my agent to talk about my plans for the next season.
“So, what now?” Celine asked.
“Let’s run it back,” I replied.
With that, I signed an extension with Kerala FC and started prepping for the next season.