Robbie Fowler the player will always be associated with his home town of Liverpool but Robbie Fowler the manager has already moved from Bangkok to Brisbane to Bengal. This road less travelled may help the 45-year-old forge an identity as a coach strong enough to emerge from the shadow of that stellar playing career.
The journey started in late 2011 with a four-month acting player-manager spell in charge of Muangthong United in Thailand. It was not long enough to get a sense of Fowler the manager but then there came a move to Brisbane Roar in April 2019.
In Australia, he started slowly. Brisbane had won four games the previous season and despite the new manager and a number of imports brought from the English leagues, they continued where they had left off. Two victories from the first 10 games had the Queensland club languishing near the bottom as 2019 ended with dour performances bringing barbs of “Fowlerball” in a country that has long held mixed opinions, at best, of British coaching.
It is a label he now welcomes. “I never made the phrase but that’s not a bad thing,” Fowler says. “It is about having an identity and if people coin this phrase then I am happy, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.
Identity
“I want to have a team that passes, keeps the ball and works extremely hard. I am not saying that I am anything like Jürgen Klopp but the mentality that all good managers have, they have an identity and if people keep using the Fowlerball thing, I’m more than happy.”
Whatever the meaning behind the term, fortunes changed as 2020 dawned and there were eight wins from the next 12. Had coronavirus not caused a suspension of the A-League in March with the team fourth, Fowler could have picked up a third successive manager of the month award. Instead, he returned to England as the pandemic picked up speed.
When the action finally resumed in July Brisbane had terminated his contract. Fowler said it was wrongful dismissal and Fifa agreed last November but by that time he was in India, to take charge of SC East Bengal, one of Asia’s biggest and oldest clubs.
Fowler, like everyone else in the Indian Super League (ISL), has been stuck in Goa, on the opposite side of the subcontinent to East Bengal’s usual home of Kolkata, since October. “I use this term loosely but essentially we are in an open prison. People may say ‘You are in a five-star hotel’ but it’s a lockdown that we’ve been in for four or five months and we leave just to train and play games.”
Just as in Australia, he started slowly, with one point from the opening five games. There are signs of recovery with two defeats in the following 10 but not yet a Brisbane-style bounce. It is a big job at a big club (derbies with Mohun Bagan can attract more than 100,000 fans) that last year left the I-League to join the ISL which, in 2019, became the top tier.
“For us to suddenly click our fingers and to get this team that was built for the I-league into the ISL was tough,” Fowler says. “We released 12, 13 players so I am getting my own squad in place. It was a tough start but we have had some great results of late. We know there is still work to do.”
Underestimated
Although the standard in India does not match the big European leagues, that does not make the job easier and it can be underestimated just how different Asian football culture is. Fowler has upset some people and made headlines by questioning the quality of local coaching and refereeing and is still finding his way.
“The players have been getting used to my habits as a coach and manager and I have been getting used to their habits too. I can help them develop and grow; that’s what I want to do.”
Some things take a little getting used to. “In the UK we are brought up eating plenty of the pastas and the chickens and protein dishes but over here a lot of the players still want to have the curry dishes. You have to adapt to whatever is thrown in front of you.”
He is keen to craft a coaching identity and being a Liverpool legend has benefits in getting players to listen. “It helps to a degree but once you are on a training pitch, I don’t think it matters because people can see what you are about. I am extremely normal, though I don’t mean to delve into the Jürgen Klopp side of things. I am me.”
One day perhaps he will cross coaching swords with the Liverpool manager in England. But not yet. “I am not sitting here complaining that I haven’t had a chance in the UK; far from it, this is an opportunity. And I’m here to be the very best I can. I want to be successful and I am ambitious. I am exactly the same as a manager as I was as a player: I want to be better than anyone else.”
– Guardian
