The former manager, who is now beginning to succeed elsewhere, has talked about an issue at Hearts and the reasons it was a “dry run.”
Ian Cathro has revealed how he didn’t fit into the Scottish football bubble during his time at Hearts.
In his first managerial position since leaving Gorgie, the former Tynecastle head coach is already making an impression as a leader in Estoril in Portugal. Since then, he has coached at the highest levels for Al Ittihad, Wolves, and Tottenham.
Cathro didn’t have to search far to discover his critics during his shorter than year-long tenure in the Premiership from 2016 to 2017. In a recent interview, he acknowledges that he felt some people were pleased to see him fail and that he now believes Estoril is the ideal candidate to help him restart his management career.
“I took away the space from somebody else,” he stated in an interview with Henry Winter. I didn’t play fives with the people who were writing the articles on a Wednesday night because I couldn’t get them on the phone. I was not in that small bubble at all.
A young Scottish coach who had not played but had previously worked at teams like Newcastle (with Steve McClaren and Benitez) and Valencia (with Nuno) caught our attention. Regretfully, there is a part of the Scottish psyche that would prefer to undermine that individual than to utilise them as an inspiration to others. Not all of them. But regrettably, it is undoubtedly a prevalent mentality.
“Having an opinion might be very simple, but coming to a decision can be really challenging. At the age of sixteen, I launched my own coaching business, the Cathro Clinic. I had to pay people, recruit people, fire people, submit accounts, and make countless judgements. For some people, it might be quite difficult to turn an opinion into a choice. That hasn’t been a problem for me because of how I’ve developed.
“I worked more hours than anyone else between the ages of 15 and 30.” I had a foundation from those fifteen years of working and thinking about all of these things every minute. Now, it’s about being clear, exact, and incredibly motivated in the moment. Reaching a stage where you can identify your peak performance is one of life’s greatest talents.
Rafa told me that he had 1,000 ideas when he was younger and 100 ideas as he became older and gained more experience. He had ten ideas by the time he became the well-known manager who won the Champions League.
“I’m travelling that path. This is the beginning, in my opinion, here in Estoril. Call it a practice run because the last one (Hearts) wasn’t really dry.
