Fantastic Mr Fuchs
He has won the Prem with Leicester, beaten Messi in MLS play-offs and now taken first coaching step ...fairytale ride for Austrian
CHRISTIAN FUCHS lived a football fairytale when he helped Leicester become Premier League champions eight years ago.
Now he’s living the American dream, coaching in the league that has Lionel Messi as its star-spangled main attraction.
Fuchs, 37, joined Charlotte FC’S coaching staff 12 months ago, after the left-back retired from playing at the end of the club’s debut MLS season.
When he took time out from a training camp in Miami ahead of the new campaign to talk about life on the other side of the white line, it wasn’t long until the subject of the world’s greatest player came up.
Back in October, Charlotte reached last season’s MLS play-offs by beating an Inter Miami team that included both Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain Messi and his former Barcelona team-mate Sergio Busquets 1-0 in front of more than 66,000 fans.
It was a huge moment for a club that have since appointed former Aston Villa, Norwich and Leicester manager Dean Smith as head coach. Fuchs said: “It wasn’t beating Messi’s team that made it so special. It was winning a game that we had to win to make the play-offs that gave the players and coaching staff a big sense of achievement.
“What the players did so well was not to fall into the trap of concentrating on one worldclass player and forget about the rest of Inter Miami’s team.
“It was a proud moment. Messi is still a phenomenon. He has come to the States for business rather than pleasure – and anyone who doubts that should look at how he scored 11 goals in just 14 games. He really wants to win.
“Inter Miami also had Busquets. And now co-owner David Beckham has signed Luis Suarez.
“This has brought a lot of focus to the MLS, but I think the league is now coming to a stage where it has to ease things like salary caps and restrictions on which players clubs can sign.
“If the MLS wants to keep growing, by attracting international stars who are at the peak of their careers rather than towards the end, then the decision-makers must loosen the rules.
“The next stage has to be to deliver a product that isn’t just attractive to Messi fans or Suarez fans – and that means changing the structure. That’s the only way to appeal to a world-wide audience.
“In my opinion, that might be the most important legacy that Messi brings to the MLS.
“There is a realisation that the Premier League is the best not because there are one or two stars, but because every team has really top players.”
Fuchs still keeps a close eye on events at Leicester’s King Power Stadium and is impressed with the job Enzo Maresca is doing in his bid to get the Foxes back into the top-flight after the shock of relegation last season having been champions in 2015-16.
Leicester also won the FA Cup during Fuchs’ six years at the club. But the Austrian prefers not to look back, just in case the whole experience proves to be only the sweetest of dreams.
“Did it really happen?” asked Fuchs. “Leicester winning the Premier League? Really? It was a season when so many unlikely things happened at the same time, like a perfect storm.
“I keep in touch with [ fellow 2016 heroes] Robert Huth, Wes Morgan and Danny Simpson – and it’s good to see Jamie Vardy is still scoring goals, at the same age as me!
“I don’t think a story like that will happen again. But you never know. That’s the beauty of football.
“If you had told me a few years ago I would go into coaching, I’d have said you were crazy. But I started to realise that I had to stay in the game, so when the offer to join the coaching staff at Charlotte came up, it was right for me.
“I love it – it’s a different buzz, but it’s so satisfying to see players buying into your ideas.”
I don’t think Leicester’s story can happen again but who knows?