Personal

Name: Jozef Venglos
aka: Dr Jozef Venglos, Jo Venglos, the Gentleman, Dr Jo
Born: 18 Feb 1936
Birthplace: Ružomberok, Czechoslovakia
Celtic manager: July 1998 - June 1999

Trivia

• Was the first foreigner to manage a club in the English top/first division (now it's the EPL): Aston Villa.
• Won the European Championships at under 23 level and, arguably his finest moment in coaching, the full European Championship with Czechoslovakia in 1976, beating Holland in the semi-finals and West Germany in the Final, as well as reaching the quarter finals of the Italia '90 World Cup.
• Appointed President of the European Coaches Union in 1995 as well as being chosen to coach European and World select teams in the 80's and 90's.
• Signed the great players Lubo & Mjallby for Celtic.Truthfully, he never made a bad signing.
• Disgracefully treated by the press (quite petty racism in some cases).

Manager 1998 - 1999

The appointment of Dr Jozef Venglos as Celtic Head Coach to succeed Wim Jansen came as a complete surprise when it was announced on 17 July 1998. The tabloids were quick to ask in predictably mocking tones, 'Dr Who?'. Despite being the head of the European Coaches Union, a member of FIFA's technical committee at France '98, and having coached Czechoslovakia to European Championship success 1976 and the quarter finals of the World Cup at Italia '90, very few Celtic fans had ever heard of him.

The dignified Slovak had also coached at such clubs as Sporting Lisbon, Aston Villa, and Fenerbahce, but this counted for nothing as far as the press were concerned. He had a hard act to follow, and many fans were irate at the time it took to land the new man. All the indications were that he was not the first choice (it now appears that that distinction belonged to Egil Olsen, who initially agreed to take the job but then backed out for reasons which are still not entirely clear).

Hampered by the lateness of his own appointment, a severe injury crisis (exacerbated by the World Cup), a bonus row, and a much delayed entry into the transfer market, Venglos got off to a worryingly poor start. Only three of the first ten league matches were won, the team made an ignominious early exit from the League Cup, and after failing to qualify for the Champions League, matters reached a head on 3 November 1998 with the disastrous loss to Zurich in the UEFA Cup. One immediate casualty was General Manager Jock Brown, but Venglos' own job was hanging by a thread when Celtic faced Rangers at Parkhead on 21 November. Strengthened by the signings of Riseth, Mjallby and Moravcik, Venglos' team responded with an unforgettable 5-1 thrashing of their arch-rivals, which went down in history as "The Humping!. That gave Venglos much needed breathing space and results gradually improved.

A major setback occurred when the long-sought after new striker Mark Viduka went AWOL immediately after completing his transfer, and the team promptly lost to Hearts at Tynecastle. After the winter break, Celtic began to play some of the most exhilirating football seen in years, with Larsson in stupendous form. But it was always asking a lot to make up the lost ground in the title race, and the challenge faltered on 24 April with a 1-0 defeat at Perth.

The league title was conceded in traumatic circumstances at Parkhead on 2 May, and the Scottish Cup remained the sole hope of consolation. But in the final against Rangers, a much criticised team selection failed to rise to the occasion, giving an insipid performance which left many muttering darkly about the Head Coach's future. He was simply done by then and had to handle too much. The treatment met out to him was a slight on the state of Scottish football.

It says much for the genuine esteem in which Venglos was held that he was able to retain much of his dignity even after the new management team of Kenny Dalglish and John Barnes was installed a short while later. Venglos retained employment at Celtic, moving to the newly created post of European Technical Advisor. The circumstances surrounding his season in charge were most unfortunate, though many felt that he was never really the man for this most demanding of jobs given his age.

We still all respect him and hope him the very best.

Career Timeline

1953-1955	Began promising career as midfielder with Tatran Bratislava
1955-1965	Made his name with hometown team Slovan Bratislava; Capped 25 times at Junior, B and Olympic level; Awarded Ph.D in Physical Education from University of Bratislava in 1955.
1962-1963	Coach at the Australian Institute of Sport
1967	Appointed manager of Australian National team
1969	Returned to Czechoslovakia to manage FC Kosice
1973	Joined Slovan Bratislava as manager; League and Cup successes in 1974 & 1975
1976	Part of Czechoslovakia coaching group which took the National team to win the European Championship final against Germany
1978	Appointed Czech National Team Head Coach; leads the team to third in 1980 European Championship.
1982	Resigned after poor showing by Czech national team at the World Cup in Spain
1983	Appointed Head Coach of Sporting Lisbon
1985	Leaves Sporting Lisbon; coaches in Malaysia
1986	Head of FIFA study Group, World Cup in Mexico
1990	Czech National Team Coach again taking the side to quarter finals of the World Cup in Italy
1990-1991	Manager of Aston Villa
1991-1992	Head Coach of Fenerbahce
1993	With the separation of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, becomes Head Coach of Slovakia
1994	Head of FIFA Study Group at World Cup in USA
1995	President of European Coaching Union
1998	Head of FIFA Technical Committee and led Study Group at World Cup in France
1998-1999	Head Coach of Celtic Football Club
2000	Acted as Coach, Scout and Technical Adviser to a number of clubs whilst in the process of setting up his own football academy in Slovakia
2002	Appointed Manager of JEF Utd; Head of FIFA Technical Study Group at Korea/Japan World Cup
2004	Acted as Technical adviser and scout to Aberdeen
2004-2007	President of European Union Football Trainers Group in which role he gave coaching seminars worldwide

Pictures

• Picture Gallery

Quotes

"Celtic sign a blank Czech!"
Daily Record wonderfully warm Scottish welcoming headline on Jozef Venglos' appointment in July 1998

"I see myself as a coach not a diplomat. You have to realise I am a new coach and this is a new atmosphere. When you are a coach you always hope to find a good dressing-room. The players are doing their duties very well."
Jo Venglos (on questioning by media over player bonus wrangles)

Sport: Football Celtic appoints new coach

Celtic have appointed Dr Jozef Venglos as their new head coach on a three-year contract.

The former Aston Villa manager is the successor to Wim Jansen who took Celtic to their first Scottish league title in a decade last season, but resigned just two days later.

Venglos, known as "The Doctor", took over at Villa Park from Graham Taylor in 1990, but was replaced a year later by Ron Atkinson.
The 62-year-old Slovakian, unveiled at a news conference at Parkhead on Friday, will initially have to operate at the club in a consultancy capacity until he obtains a work permit.

Venglos, currently coaching advisor to FIFA and technical director to Slovan Bratislava, was the first foreign manager in top-flight English football.

However his spell in Britain was memorable for its lack of success, when the Villa only just avoided relegation in the 1990-91 season.
Celtic were dealt a blow on Thursday when former France coach Gerard Houllier opted to go to Liverpool as joint team manager rather than travel to Parkhead.

Celtic managing director Fergus McCann said: "Jozef Venglos has a wealth of experience and knowledge of coaching which is difficult to match in world football.

"He knows what it takes to win at the highest level, winning leagues and cups at national level, European, and international level as well as taking Czechoslovakia to World Cup finals in Italia 90.

"The process we have gone through has involved talking to many people. It has been an in-depth search and at the end of it we have an intelligent man with a mature attitude and a knowledge of playing and coaching at the highest level."

Part of Venglos' brief will be to identify and groom his successor as he will be of pensionable age when his contract expires.

McCann said: "I believe that Jozef will not only take the first team forward but will ensure the entire coaching set-up throughout the club has a strong foundation for many years to come."

Venglos, who has also coached the national teams of Australia, Malaysia, Oman, Slovakia and Czechoslovakia, said: "I could not resist the offer of the opportunity to coach a club that is embedded in world soccer's history.

"The chance to work with 13 international players in one of Europe's finest football arenas with 60,000 supporters and so much potential still to achieve is an opportunity and challenge I relish."

The appointment of Venglos has angered some supporters and around 200 assembled outside the Parkhead offices with some chanting "Brown Out," referring to general manager Jock Brown.

But fans head Peter Rafferty urged his fellow followers to be patient and to give Venglos time.

The president of the Amalgamation of Registered Celtic Supporters' Clubs said: "Venglos is a bit of a mystery man. It is not a name we expected.

"Overall it is a surprise move on the club's part and I think that is how the supporters may view it.

"But we must give him a chance to show what he can do. That's in everyone's best interests."
The former Celtic head coach, back in Glasgow this weekend to front a European seminar - Coach 2000 organised by sportscotland and Glasgow City Council - shares a page with Vogts in which the German is described as The Winner, and he is labelled simply The Gentleman. Meant, no doubt, as a compliment, it was exactly his humane, kindly ways that left him without a name after his troubled, 10-month stint as Celtic’s head coach.

Dr Venglos’ reign at Parkhead for season 1998-99 is generally regarded as one of unmitigated disaster. Inheriting a title-winning squad from Wim Jansen, who left under a cloud, dismal early-season form led to the-then 62-year-old being portrayed as a man fiddling while Celtic’s season burned, the Slovak ridiculed over his age and words. He was shamefully presented as a bumbling old fool whose near-four decades’ experience as a coach did not make him cut out for the high-pressure post. "Certain writers chose to make a judgment of me I would not have been able to change, whatever happened," he says. "I don’t care. I don’t have to justify myself after my career."

Perhaps Venglos’ decency was not suited to the snake-pit environment of the Old Firm, the former Czechoslovakia manager preferring to exchange ideas within his squad rather than impose his will on them. But whatever his suitability, or otherwise, to take charge of a club in ferment, his methods and record in Scotland did not warrant his character being assassinated on a daily basis.

Venglos is entitled to be bitter, but regular returns to a "nice country with nice people" indicate that this is just not in his make-up. Indeed, the 64-year-old has relished visiting for the UEFA seminars, and refuses to use the trip to set the record straight on the acceptable job that he carried out in monumentally-trying circumstances.

"It was a difficult time, but it was okay," he offers, in typically-understated fashion. "I had other options, but I am glad I came to an institution like Celtic. I had no problems with the players, and we played some good football. We had so many players who were at the World Cup, and it was hard for them to peak again immediately after that. Many suffered serious injuries, which did not help. Some people chose not take these factors into account."

This an allusion to his would-be executioners, a body who also pay scant regard to the fact that Venglos guided Celtic to a 21-game unbeaten run between November and March that took the club to within a whisper of league-winners Rangers; this sequence kicked-off with the astonishing 5-1 defeat of Dick Advocaat’s men. It is a result even now the Slovak will not gloat over. "We were pretty even in Old Firm games, and it was only in my last two [the final SPL match-up and the Scottish Cup final] that we suffered a defeat to Rangers," he says. "Our problem was losing to St Johnstone three times."

Robbed of Marc Reiper for practically the entire season, the additional handicaps of long-term injuries to Alan Stubbs, Craig Burley and Jackie McNamara denied him key performers who had been the backbone of the title-winning side. Celtic, more than the media, though, hung Venglos out to dry. Turning to him at the 11th hour after several other candidates turned them down, the club dragged their heels over investing in the transfer market. It was not until two months into the season that reinforcements began to arrive in the shape of Vidar Riseth, Lubo Moravcik and Johan Mjallby. In December, Mark Viduka arrived, only to disappear back to Australia and, at a crucial period, deny Venglos a striker whose market value at Leeds has soared to £14m, three times the sum that the Slovak paid for him.

That Moravcik, whom his countryman was mocked for signing, and Mjallby remain integral to Martin O’Neill’s plans this season proves that Venglos was no fool. "I knew it was going to be transition season, the officials at the club had warned me of that, but I am glad I could bring some good players. I think I can look anyone in the eye, and say my assessment of these players was correct."

Venglos could also claim to have kept his dignity while others lost theirs, but is too genial to do that. High blood pressure was the reason given for him making way for John Barnes, a selection about which he is diplomatic: "The club thought they were getting it right; they wanted it to be right." In Barnes’ successor, O’Neill, Venglos feels they have got it right. "He is an intelligent, nice man with plenty of experience, who is getting a very good response from the players and fans, which is most important."

This is how Venglos chooses to recall his own contribution to the Celtic cause.