Those Leeds fans who have done their research have noticed that our prospective new coach has just finished a disappointing spell in Austria, but there are at least two people who think we shouldn’t be too worried.
We are still waiting for official confirmation that Darko Milanic is to take over as Leeds manager, but he is reported to have resigned his position as the head coach of Sturm Graz and flown to Leeds last night to meet Massimo Cellino and sign a two year contract. The Yorkshire Post have said that he was expected to meet the players today, along with his assistant Novica NikÄeviÄ .
In his younger days Milanic was something of a legend as a player at Sturm Graz, as the club won a couple of titles during his seven years as a central defender, and also got through to the knockout stage of the champions league on one occasion. And much was expected when he returned as coach with a good record in his previous job in his native Slovenia.
But it didn’t quite go as he hoped. There are only ten teams in Austria’s top division, but in his only full season he could do no better than to guide the club to fifth. They also suffered an embarrassing defeat by Breidablik of Iceland in the second qualifying round of the Europa League, and currently sit in sixth place, with 11 points from nine games so far this season.
Yet one man has sprung to his defence. Zlatko Zahovic, sporting director at his previous club Maribor said "Even Jose Mourinho wouldn’t be successful with Sturm Graz. The players are not good enough.” It seems that although Graz is Austria’s second largest city, the club is something of a fallen giant these days, without the resources they enjoyed in their glory days of the 1990s.
And local football journalist Matthias Reif, of the local Kleine Zeitung agreed. "He’s also a very gentle and nice person and had a father role with some players. He is a good coach, but maybe some of the players were just not good enough to get it on the pitch in terms of what he wanted.There were some difficulties between Milanic and the players. I guess he did not really get them 100 per cent to do what he wanted them to.”
That’s fairly reassuring, but you could say that Milanic had the advantage of the opposite situation at Maribor, who have been Slovenia’s biggest club since their rivals Olimpija Ljubljana ran into severe financial problems. During Milanic’s five years in charge they won nine domestic trophies, including four league titles.
It may be a surprise that a coach who was already in work would want to leave his job to work for Cellino, but Milanic activated an escape clause that allowed him to move on if he paid up the remaining time on his contract. But what can we expect once he has taken over at Elland Road?
He speaks five languages, will come in handy with our multinational squad, and hopefully these include English and Italian.
He has a reputation for favouring a rigid 4-4-2 formation, expecting his team to work hard, and for taking few risks. It’s also been suggested that he prefers to use experienced players, and it would be a big disappointment if he didn’t give our excellent academy products the chance to progress. But if there was high expectation when he took over at Sturm Graz, it will be nothing to what he can expect at Leeds.
He joins us just as the club’s fortunes are picking up on the field and the many summer signings are starting to gel as a team, but he will be under pressure to keep the run going as many Leeds fans thought that Neil Redfearn should have been offered the job on a permanent basis. And although Redfearn’s four games were against teams near the bottom of the table, Milanic will have to start with a tougher fixture list, facing three of the top six in October.
But as long as he is given enough time to settle into the job (which may not be a given under Cellino!) Milanic will have no excuses. Unlike his previous job at Sturm Graz he will have considerable resources to work with by the standards of this division, so this should settle once and for all whether he is or is not a good manager.