Who is Darko Milanic, Leeds United’s new manager?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/sep/24/darko-milanic-leeds-united-new-manager

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Darko Milanic describes an acute sense of irony as one of his key character traits. It promises to serve him well while working under Massimo Cellino in the parallel universe otherwise known as Planet Leeds United.

The 46-year-old Slovenian finds himself at the helm of one of England’s most famous and prestigious clubs, boasting some of the country’s most dedicated supporters but not all is quite what it seems.

Elland Road may remain a well appointed, magnificently intimidating, stadium but staffing levels at the club’s once state of the art training facility at Thorp Arch near Wetherby have been slimmed down to the point where players have been told to bring their own packed lunches to training and assume responsibility for washing their training kit. The Champions League glory nights of the David O’Leary-Peter Ridsdale era feel like another world.

At least Milanic arrives with Leeds on quite a roll, the team having taken 10 points out of 12 during a Championship renaissance overseen by the popular caretaker Neil Redfearn who will now revert to his old job as academy coach.

Redfearn’s temporary promotion had erased much of the gloom engendered by the shaky start to the season under Dave Hockaday, the one-time Forest Green Rovers manager, somewhat startlingly recruited by Cellino this summer ahead of a turbulent 70-day reign.

Now Milanic must convince Elland Road he is a better bet than the caretaker. The former Slovenia and, before that, Yugoslavia centre-half enjoyed fabulous success with Maribor in his home country, leading the Slovenian league’s version of Scotland’s Celtic to four titles and five cups in five years but found life rather tougher going in his most recent posting at Sturm Graz.

Back in the 1990s Milanic was the star defender at Sturm, helping the team from Austria’s second city win eight trophies. Since then the club’s stock has fallen but, even so, last season’s fifth placed finish in Austria’s Bundesliga – not to mention Europa League qualifying round elimination to Icelandic minnows Kopavogur – proved a little underwhelming.

In mitigation, Milanic was much liked in Graz and possesses persuasive apologists. His good friend Zlatko Zahovic, the sporting director at Maribor, has claimed that due to the poor quality of the players “even José Mourinho would not succeed at Graz”.

Now a coach seemingly identified by Cellino around 10 days ago after the Leeds owner scrutinised the cvs of scores of coaches likely to be available within his budget, has swapped one tough gig for another. The new Leeds manager inherits a mixed bunch at Elland Road and it will be interesting to see whether Milanic – very much a 4-4-2 man at Maribor – reverts to his default configuration or persists with the 4-2-3-1 he had switched to in Graz.

The good news for the manager is that many of the summer’s startling array of 15 signings, most imported from overseas, are starting to settle in quite nicely in Yorkshire. Marco Silvestri looks increasingly impressive in goal, Stephen Warnock seems born again at left-back, the 17-year-old academy graduate Lewis Cook appears a fantastic midfield prospect and Souleymane Doukara and Mirco Antenucci are proving dangerous in attack.

In Austria Milanic had a reputation for excellent coaching (even if he failed to improve some admittedly limited players as much as hoped), featuring an exhaustive work ethic and allied to a kind, almost paternal approach towards his charges.

Quite how a tactical approach described as “essentially cautious” will fit with Cellino’s desire for expansive football remains to be seen but at least there should be plenty of off-field fluency.

Proficient in five languages communication in an eclectic Leeds changing room should not be a problem for the man from Izola. An old fishing town on the Adriatic side of the Istrian peninsula, Izola lies close to Italy’s border with Slovenia – or Yugoslavia as it was during the days when the young Milanic moved to Belgrade to start making his name in Partizan’s defence.

“I talk a lot with the guys,” he has said of his management style. “I provoke. I’m ironic and friendly but always respectful. Always level.”

If that sounds promising, Milanic – who will be assisted by his old Sturm Graz sidekick, the former Serbian forward Novica Nikcevic – remains very much an unknown quantity to almost everyone at the Championship’s 12th placed club. Both inside and outside Elland Road there is a sense Redfearn should have been offered an extended chance and the critics are circling, ready to pounce should Milanic stumble in his first game at Brentford on Saturday.

Phil Neville summed up the prevailing mood. “I think it’s a disgrace Leeds have gone to Slovenia and brought in a lad, Milanic, I’ve never heard of,” said the former Manchester United, Everton and England defender turned BBC pundit. “In Neil Redfearn they’ve got someone with quality and experience who knows what the club is all about. It just seems a stupid appointment.”

For his part Milanic was so eager to join Leeds he bought himself out of a three-year contract in Austria which still had 20 months outstanding. “It was not an easy decision to go from Sturm,” he says. “Sturm is my club and I really wanted to stay longer.

“But then came an offer from a different league, from another world. Leeds is a simply tremendous opportunity which I simply had to accept because who knows when something like this would come along again.”