Restless Rodgers is certain he will grace international stage at some point
AS Harry Redknapp and Dick Advocaat take on management jobs that will see them work into their 70s, Brendan Rodgers can’t say for sure if he’ll be using all his veteran knowledge 25 years from now in a new challenge or be parked on a beach next to his sunshine retirement villa.
What Rodgers is convinced he must do before hanging up his tracksuit, however, is take a national team to a World Cup Finals or European Championships. And the man Redknapp wanted to pair up with as his England coaching colleague, when on the brink of the job five years ago, is open to managing a number of national sides — including all the home nations.
The Celtic boss said: ‘I have too much energy, too much enthusiasm and too much other things to do to think about that now. But if I’m going to coach for another 20-odd years then at some point the possibility of going to a World Cup or European Championships is an experience I want to have.
‘The ability to work with a group of international players and go to a major championships that would be amazing. I’d be open to the experience in general. I’m Northern Irish, I’m very proud of that and pretty clear on that. But I’ve worked in England all my life virtually, I’ve worked in Wales, worked in Scotland.
‘Louis van Gaal did it a couple of times for Holland, there’s Dick Advocaat going back for a third time, Guus Hiddink. They are top-class operators. They do it once, come away from it and why shouldn’t you do it again?
‘Likewise with me and England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic, you can say it will probably never happen. But why wouldn’t it happen? You’ve got someone who’s a real top operator and if you can get them to work, then you would do that.’
Advocaat, who turns 70 in September, is set for a third shot at managing The Netherlands following stints with South Korea, Belgium and Russia.
The ex-Rangers boss was the same age as Rodgers, 44, when taking on the KNVB No1 job for the first time back in 1992 and in Antonio Conte, Mark Hughes and Slaven Bilic there are three current English top-flight managers who were in charge of their nations at an early stage of their coaching careers.
However, Rodgers would be more comfortable with the Gordon Strachan route to a national job. ‘As you get older you naturally slow down a bit and it allows you to put all your energy into a block of time, you will come away and have time to analyse more football,’ he explained. ‘You start out virtually as a teacher of the game, teaching young people.
‘You move into coaching, further along into management. There it depends if you’re a manager and a coach or just a manager. And as you become older you become a consultant/ advisor. And that’s your timeline.
‘So when you reach international you’re head coach at that age but you can also use the great experiences you have to consult, advise, develop. Gordon Strachan had his Premier League experiences, Championship experiences, Celtic experience and the national team was probably the natural progression.
‘I’m sure there’s no more passionate a guy to work for his country. And that probably works quite well for him. But, then, Conte did it for a couple of years with Italy, Bilic took the Croatia job when he was young.
‘Mark Hughes at Wales when he was 35. Michael O’Neill is very good — and may go back to club football — but why should that stop him doing the international scene again for another country? It’s just timing, isn’t it?’
Redknapp, who agreed a one-year deal with Birmingham City last week after saving them from relegation to League One, has only two international games on his fine managerial record — when in charge of Jordan in 2014.
But he was so convinced, in April 2012, that he would be replacing Fabio Capello at the FA that he approached then Swansea manager Rodgers after a Premier League game at Tottenham about helping him in the job.
Redknapp loved the style of Swansea and told Rodgers he wanted that implemented at international level ahead of that summer’s Euros.
‘He said: “Look, what you’ve done with those Swansea players and how they are playing, can you come in and do that with these because look at the quality that’s there”,’ said Rodgers. ‘You can make them play like that and we have a chance of winning. So let’s come in, you do that and we work together on it.
‘He was led to believe he was going to get the job and he wanted me to be jointEngland manager with him. So it was a really incredible thing to ask another manager to do. It shows you his humility that he was prepared to do that.
‘Of course, in the end, there was never an answer “yes” or “no” in it. That would have been hard for me. But, for him as a man, it was something that was taken note of because he was always someone I respected highly.
‘What Harry has always done is work on the strengths of players. That’s a leadership skill in itself. Instead of moving the player here and there, thinking he can maybe do this and that. That’s why I love speaking with experienced managers. They’ve been through it all, done it all, had the hardships.’