McLEISH ENJOYING ANOTHER TASTE OF CHAOS IN CAIRO
As McLeish settles into life at Zamalek, he reveals... MARK WALKER
ATA near-deserted stadium on t he outskirts of Cairo t his week, Alex McLeish could be heard barking out instructions to his players as they lost to a team representing the Egyptian Ministry of War Production.
Behind hi mina crumbling dugout, his coaching staff were nonchalantly puffing away on cheap African cigarettes.
After the full-time whistle had blown, the referee was encircled by a number of military personnel for protection — even though there were no supporters at the Petro Sport Stadium since all fans were banned from attending games by the government last year.
McLeish’s post- match Press conference descended into a shoving match between local journalists, desperate to ask their new coach a question. Earlier, those same reporters had been punching the grass in frustration as McLeish’s Zamalek side missed yet another chance. Welcome to Egyptian football. What McLeish himself calls a great challenge started this week in Egypt. The former Rangers and Scotland manager prides himself on being a quick learner. He will have to be. The defeat put his new team six points behind their great Cairo rivals Al Ahly — managed by ex-Spurs boss Martin Jol.
Club president Mortada Mansour has already wielded the managerial axe five times this season. Second place to bitter rivals Al Ahly is not good enough and the former Aberdeen defender is well aware of this.
Some have called his decision to move to Egypt brave, others have been less complimentary, but Mc Le is his adamant it is a challenge he is relishing.
‘It would have been easier not to take this job, but Zamalek are one of the biggest teams in Africa and the Middle East, which is some accolade for the club,’ he told Sportsmail. ‘It’s a great challenge to try to win a title because, in England, I’ve been fire-fighting for a long time.
‘I was thinking to myself, do I wait for a job in England and I thought: “Nah. I’m not sitting on my a**e any longer”. I need to get out. I’ve done Scotland, I’ve managed Rangers, which was a delight, and I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to try something different, so here I am.
‘The fans here are fanatical. If you think that there are 25 million people here in Cairo and it’s half and half between us and Al Ahly, that gives you an idea of how big this club is. And it’s the same with the rest of Egypt. It’s the sport for real people here, just like it is for us in Scotland.’
OF course, McLeish knows all about fanatical city rivalries, having slugged i t out with Celtic as Rangers manager. It appeared impossible to encounter anyone in the gigantic Egyptian capital who did not have an opinion about the new manager. He accepts there are plenty of similarities between the two cities.
‘You can just substitute the name Glasgow for Cairo because it’s the same kind of rivalry,’ he said. ‘It reminds me of when I went head to head with Martin O’Neill because second is not good enough for these clubs.
‘A friend of mine who works out here told me if you think the Old Firm is a fever-pitch derby, wait for the Zamalek v Al Ahly game.’
Five years after the revolution that saw two million people march on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the city itself retains a distinctly sinister edge. Every hotel requires guests to walk through an airport- style metal detector before they even get through the door. There are army checkpoints on seemingly every street corner. And as for the notorious chaotic Cairo traffic, it can take over two hours to travel from the city to the outskirts of town.
McLeish — whose wife will move to Cairo this weekend — is aware of the delicate situation but has sought comforting reassurance from a surprise source.
‘I spoke to the British Embassy for advice about Egypt. I’d been approached last year about this job and I told them I was not entirely sure about the safety,’ admitted McLeish.
‘Believe it or not, there’s a guy who grew up in the same town as me, Barrhead, who works for the British Embassy out here. In fact, he even comes from the same estate as me, Auchenback, where I grew up. Bobby Williamson actually put me in touch with the guy and I phoned to ask advice about Cairo.
‘I told him I was worried about the safety element, especially as there had been such a recent revolution and he assured me i t was safe. The people were tremendous and convinced me it was a great city.’
The similarities with Glasgow end at the stadium, however. All fans are currently banned from Egyptian football after the deadly 2012 riot at Port Said Stadium that claimed the lives of 74 fans. The ban was partly lifted a year ago, but the death of 20 Zamalek fans in a stampede caused by police tear gas in Cairo prompted a renewal of the ban.
Yet, even managing in front of no fans does not faze the ex-Hibs and Motherwell manager.
‘I have a mate in the Middle East who works in Qatari football and they have no fans either,’ he said. ‘I’ve been over there and seen the likes of Xavi Hernandez playing in front of a couple of hundred fans. I said to him I wasn’t sure if I could handle having no fans, but he told me you get used to it quickly.’
‘We use the fans as part of our team talk in Scotland and England because it can bring extra energy but I can’t use that here. It will be about self-motivation.’
And McLeish is well aware what the price for failure will bring in the volatile world of the Egyptian Premier League.
‘I know they don’t want to wait to win things. They don’t want to build for the future, they want to win it now and I’ve got that experience with Rangers. It’s that kind of mentality,’ he said.
‘I’m fully aware of the job situation here. That’s part of the challenge and part of the opportunity. Al Ahly are seen as the top team here but I know my challenge here and it’s not to build a team, it’s to try to win the league and I’ll have a right crack at it.’
WHILE he is excited about his new challenge, a lingering sense of injustice from his time at Aston Villa still gnaws away at the former Scotland boss. As he watches from afar their seemingly unstoppable descent from England’s top flight, he can’t help but feel a tinge of remorse.
‘I look at Aston Villa’s plight now, I fought for every point to keep that team in the Premier League and I don’t think I got the credit I deserved,’ he said.
‘In fact, it probably cost me a little bit in terms of reputation. It does not anger me, but it is frustrating. I was basically doing a Red Adair job.
‘At Villa, we had injuries and we lost key players in the second half of the season. We had a good first half of the season where we beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge but the second half was difficult.
‘We just had to get there and we did it and a lot of it was down to my experience in management and trying to keep as stable a team as I could despite having no Robbie Keane or Darren Bent for the last 15 games.
‘Gabby Agbonlahor and Emile Heskey were then the main strikers and they were never really prolific. I brought in a young guy, Andreas Weimann, in who was banging them in the reserves and he scored a couple of crucial goals for us. These are the decisions that kept Villa afloat. So that’s why guys with a lack of expertise don’t see that and the punters who were against me would not understand that.
‘I thought they would have been able to rebuild after I left. I believe they would be in a better position right now if I had got the chance to build there. It’s in the past. It’s a sore one and I’m a bit raw with it. Their progress has not been evident.’