Pedro’s biggest test here? Football played in the air and finding good espresso SAYS IAN CATHRO
ASKED what aspect of Scottish life might test Pedro Caixinha most, Ian Cathro’s response is unexpected. ‘The fact it’s difficult to go somewhere and have a really good espresso at eight or nine o’clock at night,’ he says. ‘The fact that life ends here at 5pm.
‘If you don’t cram in everything you need to do here before five o’clock, you’ve had it. There is no more life after that time.’
The head coach of Hearts is joking. Partly.
Yet three years as an assistant in Portuguese football grants Cathro a greater insight into the pitfalls facing the new manager of Rangers than most.
Between 2012 and 2014, the 30-year-old Scot worked for Rio Ave in the Portuguese league. Then he spent a year in La Liga with Valencia.
Cathro’s recollections of the new Rangers manager are vague to non-existent. He suspects they
might have crossed paths as opposing coaches once, but can’t be sure.
Neither does he profess to know a great deal about the riskiest managerial appointment in Ibrox history. Or how the new man might work.
Drawing on his taste of continent a l coaching, however, Cathro already knows this much. To the outsider, Scottish football can be a culture set in its ways.
Ally McCoist, a Rangers icon, has already expressed the view that a planned restructuring of the Ibrox management to incorporate a director of football is ‘absolute garbage’.
By publicly suggesting the Rangers board should have turned to Derek McInnes, former manager and chairman Walter Smith came as close as he might to a mild rebuke.
Where Caixinha is concerned, former players — including most vocally Derek Ferguson — are sceptical. Media reaction has been lukewarm at best. Supporters are underwhelmed.
Of all the concerns expressed, one is more persistent than most. Coaches with little or no experience of British football or the intense, throbbing pressure which comes with managing Rangers have a tendency to flounder. The ghost of Paul le Guen hovers over Caixinha’s shoulder.
Cathro was born and bred in Dundee. After re-learning football through the Portuguese eyes of former colleague Nuno Espirito Santo, however, he admits the readjustment to Scottish football has been a testing business. The game here is unique.
‘The ball being in the sky a little bit more often takes some getting used to,’ he adds. ‘But a lot of the time, it’s simple life things.
‘You come in to the football club at first and you will get that coffee, because you will be in the office. You just make it yourself.
‘But life is different here. It’s certainly different.’
Cathro has spent little time fretting over the guessing game surrounding Caixinha’s arrival date, even if he did contribute hugely to the demise of Mark Warburton the night his Hearts side inflicted a humiliating 4-1 defeat on Rangers.
He is more reluctant to contribute to the debate over Caixinha’s arrival or whether it might work.
When he landed the Hearts job, Cathro was met with something close to hostility. An intense, heated debate over Scottish football’s ‘old guard’ ensued. Without saying a word, the former SFA coach found himself at the heart of an idealistic debate over the future of Scottish football.
The restructuring at Rangers could have a similar impact, forcing people once more to overcome their suspicion of directors of football.
On Caixinha, however, Cathro offers nothing stronger than a shrug. ‘I have not followed the story closely,’ he says. ‘I might have been involved in a game against him once when he was assistant. I’m not sure.
But I have not crossed paths with him to any great degree.’
He is more forthcoming on the difficulties facing a Portuguese in Scotland. ‘The media scrutiny is probably similar,’ he ponders.
‘But, in Portugal, you have three daily newspapers (A Bola,
O Jogo, Record) which are solely about football. They talk more about actual football. Everyone’s tactics and teams and technical ways are placed under more scrutiny than here and talked about by more people.
‘Forgive me if this sounds negative, but here we are more headline-driven. Story-driven.
‘They have three daily newspapers they have to fill with football alone, so naturally they have to go a bit deeper into things. There is more discussion of tactics, line-ups, systems.’
Caixinha’s media strategy will be one of the main fascinations. In conducting background checks, directors heard time and again that the 46-year-old takes no nonsense. He can be spiky when he needs to be and fights his corner, but bears a thicker skin than his sensitive predecessor Warburton.
Asked if he has any specific advice for the new man, Cathro shakes his head, saying: ‘I’m the 30-year-old rookie. I’m not about to give anybody advice.
Even so, there can be no denying a basic fact. After his communication skills and personality were queried by fellow pros Kris Boyd, Stephen Craigan and Jamie Fullarton, Cathro knows how it feels to have the finger of suspicion jabbing his way.
‘Yeah, of a Scot in Scotland...’ he grins. ‘Suspicion does exist. But most people who have come into that situation are not coming into that for the very first time.
‘Most people who come here from outside have already been some place else. These guys are ready to deal with these things. They can handle it.’
Caixinha has worked in Greece, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Coaches who opt for the lucrative Middle East circuit face more suspicion than most. A career graveyard.
Now Caixinha has been granted the kind of opportunity to manage a major European club which looked beyond him. His career, bearing ten jobs in 12 years, shows a reluctance to settle anywhere. He doesn’t hang around jobs long.
Yet senior Rangers figures explain their choice in simple terms. After years in the lower leagues this is where they are. The club must accept its limitations. Rangers can’t land Jose Mourinho or even Ronald de Boer.
Caixinha rarely hangs around anywhere too long, yet Rangers have a clear view on this. If the Portuguese can give them two good years before the feet start itching once more, it’s a gamble worth taking.