After a search lasting a little under four weeks, the new head coach of Lincoln City has been named, and it’s not someone who has ever appeared in the bookies odds.
It is, of course, someone whose name you will have read on my site. Michael Skubala is the man who will be taking his place in the dugout – he’s the current Leeds United Under 21 manager, and a man who was caretaker for a short period earlier in the season. He’s clearly got a taste for the role, as he takes up his first permanent head coach role in the game.
“It feels great to be here, it has been a really warm welcome and I’m looking forward to getting going,” said the former England Under 18 coach.
“I’ve been here for a couple of games in the past few weeks, and I’ve seen how important the fans are for the young players and how they can push the team.
“I’m really excited to work hard with the players every day, to meet the fans and be part of Lincoln City. I feel something here that I felt when I moved to Leeds, which is how important the supporters can be to the club.”
City chairman Clive Nates said: “We have been tracking Michael for some time as he is one of the most exciting young coaches in the game right now, and had a robust recruitment process to ensure he was the right person for us at this time.
“We had a list of 15 coaches we thought would be a good fit, and Michael impressed as we went through the interviews. The warm wishes from Leeds United show how respected and popular he was there.
“We see this as a progressive appointment – Michael shares our ethos on player development, style of play and ambition. He has a clear vision for how he implements this and a track record of developing talented young players.
“We’re also really pleased that Tom Shaw will stay as a key part of the coaching structure as assistant head coach. He is a highly capable coach, and both we and Michael believe he will bring strong continuity and support to the new head coach.”
Firstly, what did I write about him back on October 20th? Well, here’s my assessment back then, which you can check to show I’m not being disingenuous.
“Skubala is a renowned coach with a proven track record of working with elite young players. He’s been with Forest, Coventry and is currently Under 21 boss at Leeds United. He’s got 20 years of experience in coaching but is only 44.
“He was a caretaker at Leeds for a short time, and being Nottingham-born would mean a move to Lincoln wasn’t all that far from the city he calls home.
“He’s certainly another who, like Cochrane, might not have taken the conventional route that fans recognise but that has gained a massive reputation in the football world.”
His background is unique – he spent time as a teacher and as director of football at Loughborough University. Some of his background is in Futsal, a game predominately enjoyed in Europe and often seen as something our coaches lack – in Europe, many top coaches have played or coached the game. You can hear him talking Futsal in this excellent interview.
He is described as humble – in a recent interview with The Atheltic, Raoni Medina, the former England futsal captain, said of Skoobs (as he is known),“ He will never want to shine more than the players. He doesn’t want to be the protagonist himself.
“He will say, ‘Let’s have a conversation, you know more about this situation than me’. He will make his decision but it will be after he’s spoken to people inside the changing room who know more about the institution, more about the league, more about the situation around him. It’s a very wise and very correct thing to do.”
In 2011, alongside James Ellis, he took the Great Britain University football team to the silver medal at the World University Games in China. The team were not expected to get out of the group stage, but they reached the final game, losing 2-0 to Japan. “We had no right to beat Brazil in the quarter-final and, to be honest, probably no right to beat South Korea in the semi,” said Scott McCubbin, the vice-captain.
“Every game we played brilliant systems and everyone bought into the process and what we were trying to achieve. They did an unbelievable job of making us believe we could beat those teams.”
There’s no doubt our new man is both connected and highly rated. He can count Gareth Southgate as a personal friend, but he’s not one to play on that – he fought off candidates from around the world to land the Leeds Under 21s job, and on the face of it seems a solid appointment in coaching terms.
As you can expect, there will be a YouTube video of us discussing the appointment on our YouTube channel here. If you want to hear a little more from the man himself, there are some interesting comments on the video below, set to start as he talks about his coaching.
You must be logged in to post a comment.