charles
Graham Fisher
Andrew Aigner-Muehler
LukeS
HardySteve McLaren: Goodbye and good riddance
November 23rd 2007 05:00
Steve McLaren's 15-month tenure as England head coach - the briefest of any full-time England coach - came to an abrupt end on Thursday morning (GMT) after England's disastrous exit from the Euro 2008 Championship.
In the aftermath of England's 3-2 defeat by Croatia, the Football Association held an emergency board meeting the morning after and made an unanimous decision to terminate the contract of McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables with immediate effect.
The FA's chief executive Brian Barwick admitted McClaren's failure to qualify for Euro 2008 cost him his job.
'It was a board decision - it was unanimous." he said.
"I spoke to Steve this morning - we get on very well with him. I've had many grown-up conversations and had another one with him this morning - and I can only wish him well.
But in the end, not qualifying for Euro 2008 comes up short. Qualification for a major tournament is probably a minimum requirement." he added.
McLaren took over as manager of England after the departure of Sven Goran Eriksson on August 1st 2006 to very little public backing. He had been involved with the England setup for many years as assistant coach prior to his appointment as head coach and many felt that he had been hastily appointed due to the lack of candidates available to the FA at the time.
Despite being given two chances to qualify for the finals in Austria and Switzerland, McLaren and his men wasted both opportunities with completely inept performances to miss out on qualification for a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup.
It took years for the last manager that failed to lead the country to a major tournament, Graham Taylor, years to rebuild his reputation and there is no doubt that it would take even longer for Steve McLaren, who now has the unenviable record of the highest percentage of games lost as manager at 28%.
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