The World Is a Ball: Doors are closed to black coaches, says black Premier League coach

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World champion midfielder with France in the 1998 Cup, Patrick Vieira stopped playing in 2011 and left, a while later, for a coaching career.

Vieira believed in his potential and decided to put their faces in a different terrain to people like him. Black soccer coaches are an exception.

So much so that he is the only black coach among the 20 employees in the Premier League, the English league, which is the most popular national competition in the world today, with the most famous coaches Pep Guardiola (Manchester City), Jürgen Klopp (LIverpool) and Antonio Conte (Tottenham).

This being that, of the total number of players who play in the Premier League, more than four out of ten (43%) are black.

“I believe the doors are not open for us [treinadores negros] to do what we are capable of and enter management”, Vieira told the BBC. “When I talk about management, I talk about the team and also from higher positions.”

In the top five European leagues (England, Germany, Italy, Spain and France), which together have 98 clubs, there are only two black coaches: Vieira, 46, at Crystal Palace, and another Frenchman, Antoine Kombouaré, 58, at Nantes.

Only the Premier League has a survey of black players who compete in it, but in the “eyeball” it is easy to see that there are dozens of them defending clubs in other championships, unlike what is observed on the drawing boards.

For example, Bayern Munich, the main force in German football, has Mané, Gnabry, Sané, Coman, Upamecano, Davies, Gravenberch and Sarr. All black, commanded by the white Julien Nagelsmann.

Napoli, leader of the Italian, has in its ranks Osimhen, Ndombele, Zambo Anguissa and Juan Jesus. All black, directed by white Luciano Spalletti.

In the squad of Real Madrid, current champions of the Champions League and that point at Espanyol, there are Vini Jr., Alaba, Camavinga, Mendy, Éder Militão, Rüdiger and Tchouaméni. All black. The Whites’ coach is Carlo Ancelotti.

The scenario is repeated in Brazil, where most of the players are black or brown.

In the elite of the Brazilian Championship, which has 20 teams, only two coaches are black: Jair Ventura (son of Jairzinho, the Hurricane of the 1970 World Cup), in Goiás, and Orlando Ribeiro, in Santos, the latter with interim status.

Even historically, coaches who managed to work in big clubs in Brazil are rare. Recent exceptions are Roger Machado (Grêmio, Palmeiras, Fluminense) and Marcão (Fluminense).

Further back, Andrade (Flamengo), Cristóvão Borges (Fluminense, Vasco, Flamengo, Corinthians), Serginho Chulapa (Santos) and the late Lula Pereira (Flamengo, Bahia, Ceará).

“We need to give opportunities to people of color. To be able to show that we are as good as the others”, says Vieira, not being politically correct with himself when quoting “people of color”.

The coach, who did not openly mention racism to justify the scenario he addressed – but the obvious conclusion is this –, has had a satisfactory performance at London’s Crystal Palace.

With a team without stars and without huge financial support – unlike Manchester City, Chelsea or Newcastle –, it occupies the intermediate tenth place in the Premier League, with the same number of points as the famous Liverpool.

Kombouaré, however, has struggled to keep Nantes out of the relegation zone in France, and both Orlando Ribeiro’s Santos and Jair Ventura’s Goiás play a mediocre role in the Brasileiro – respectively 12th and 13th in the leaderboard.

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In time: In the Qatar World Cup, which starts on November 20 and will have 32 teams, there will be three black coaches, all from teams from black Africa. They are Rigobert Song (Cameroon), Brazil’s rival in the first phase, Otto Addo (Ghana) and Aliou Cissé (Senegal).

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