Former Chelsea manager Avram Grant has been in Dubai where he met with Saeed Hareb, Secretary General of Dubai Sports Council, to discuss the betterment of football in the UAE.
The Israeli, who has also managed among others Maccabi Haifa, Portsmouth, West Ham United, Partizan Belgrade and the Ghana national team, currently lectures at a number of prominent universities, including NYU in the United States. Grant, 65, spoke to The National during his stay.
You’ve been out of management since 2018 when you had a spell in the Indian Super League. What are your plans going forward?
“I have the same answer to this that I have all the time. When I come to a football team, I have a long-term programme, short-term programme; I can tell you what I will do in the next training. In my life I don’t know what will happen. Because I didn’t know that football would take me to England, the Ghana national team, Thailand for a few months, India, Serbia. And I’m happy for this.
For the moment, I enjoy using my experience to consult people and to give lectures about the aspects of football that people don’t know from the inside, like the pressure you have in football, which everybody talks about in a negative way when I think it’s a positive.
I use my experience to speak with others: how’s it going at the highest level, how you treat players, how you deal with the media, with the owners, which today is not so easy because they put in a lot of money and they want results yesterday. This is what I’m doing now all over the world; I did it in the Far East and in America. But [the pandemic] has stopped the travel, so I do it by Zoom.”
You guided Chelsea to runner-up finishes in both the Premier League and the Uefa Champions League during the 2007/08 season. Have you still got the hunger to manage?
“Yes. I love football and I love the communication with football. I miss the competition, the pressure and the build-up during the week, the activity. These things were part of my life; you cannot see it in any other job because there’s no job like football where you can see a lot of passion from everybody, from the supporters up.
So I miss the competition, to show who is stronger mentally, who is more clever, who recovers better. Because in football you cannot win all the time, so you need to know how to behave when you’re winning - ask more from yourself - and you need to know how to recover. But, on the other end, it’s very enjoyable to share your experience with people from all over the world. Some developing countries, such as Cambodia when I was there, the people are suffering a lot, but football is everything to them.”
Have you had much interest from clubs in getting back into management?
“I had many offers, but if I’m being honest, the offers I received are not the offers I wanted. I had a good experience with Chelsea in the Premier League, a very good experience with Portsmouth, a bad experience with West Ham, which is also experience. And then I went to other countries. I wanted a team that will be challenging for me, and I didn’t find the right challenge. When you have a lot of experience and many years in football like me, you are not looking for money, you’re looking for a challenge. I didn’t find it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Would managing in the UAE appeal? Is there interest there?
“It’s very funny. My former player became an agent and asked me two years ago, if it was not for the political side, was I ready to coach in the UAE? I said of course. My mother came from Iraq and one of the journalists there, who are all very supportive of me, asked, ‘Are you ready to coach Iraq?’ I said, ‘For free, because my mother’. Let’s say I went in a few directions: the first is to do something in football like it was in Chelsea, Portsmouth, Partizan Belgrade or Ghana, which was amazing results.
And second, is to go to other places where football can take me and have a big adventure. Like I was in India, in Thailand. That was amazing, to share your experience with a country that is passionate for football. So I’m looking for this or that. And the UAE is part of that. It’s a very, very interesting project. They have invested a lot here. It’s an amazing place here.”
Diaa Saba made history in September by becoming the first Israeli footballer to sign for an Arab club, when he joined Al Nasr from China’s Guangzhou R&F. What do you make of him as a player?
“He’s very talented. I like him. He played in Israel and did very well, played in China and did well. I don’t know him personally, but he will score a lot of goals. He knows the job. He’s a good signing. And others will follow. Because it’s a real peace, it’s not a fake peace.”