.jpg) Houghton in 1979 | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Robert Douglas Houghton | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1947-10-30)30 October 1947 (age 78) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | England | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1966–1969 | Fulham | 0 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1969–1970 | Brighton & Hove Albion | 0 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1970–1971 | Hastings United | 65 | (14) | ||||||||||||||
| 1971–1972 | Maidstone United | ||||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1970–1971 | Hastings United | ||||||||||||||||
| 1971–1972 | Maidstone United | ||||||||||||||||
| 1974–1980 | Malmö FF | ||||||||||||||||
| 1980 | Ethnikos Piraeus | ||||||||||||||||
| 1980–1982 | Bristol City | ||||||||||||||||
| 1982–1984 | Toronto Blizzard | ||||||||||||||||
| 1984–1986 | Al-Ittihad | ||||||||||||||||
| 1987–1988 | Örgryte IS | ||||||||||||||||
| 1989 | Al-Ittihad | ||||||||||||||||
| 1990–1992 | Malmö FF | ||||||||||||||||
| 1993 | Al-Ittihad | ||||||||||||||||
| 1994–1995 | FC Zürich | ||||||||||||||||
| 1996 | Colorado Rapids | ||||||||||||||||
| 1997–1999 | China | ||||||||||||||||
| 2000 | Shanghai Pudong | ||||||||||||||||
| 2001 | Sichuan Quanxing | ||||||||||||||||
| 2002–2003 | Zhejiang Greentown | ||||||||||||||||
| 2005 | Uzbekistan | ||||||||||||||||
| 2005–2006 | Changsha Ginde | ||||||||||||||||
| 2006–2011 | India | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
Robert Douglas Houghton (born 30 October 1947) is an Englishfootball manager and former player. His career has spanned over 30 years and 10 countries. He is most famous for taking Swedish clubMalmö FF to the1979 European Cup final, where they lost toNottingham Forest.
During his brief playing career, Houghton was a midfielder forFulham (1966–69) andBrighton & Hove Albion (1969–70). Houghton was one of the youngest coaches ever to manage in English senior football, being appointed player-manager ofHastings United in theSouthern League at only 23. During that period, he was a star pupil of coaching guru Allen Wade, who was the technical director of the Football Association between 1963 and 83.[1] In the early 1970s Houghton also managedMaidstone United and worked as an assistant toBobby Robson atIpswich Town.[2]
He became the manager of Swedish top flight sideMalmö FF in 1974. Houghton guided them to success domestically and internationally, reaching the1979 European Cup final, losing 1–0 againstNottingham Forest. The team was all based on local players who came from within 60 km fromMalmö. It was the first and so far only time a Swedish team has reached the European Cup final.
He also won the Swedish championship andSvenska Cupen several times and was runner-up in theIntercontinental Cup in1979 as Nottingham Forest declined to participate, losing againstOlimpia from Paraguay.
Houghton's early coaching career was closely linked to that of his friendRoy Hodgson. They worked together at Maidstone, Stranraer and Bristol City. They also managed different teams inSwedish football at the same time.
Houghton moved to Sweden with Malmö in 1974 and two years later installed Hodgson atHalmstad. The pair are credited with transforming football in Sweden[3] and bringing inzonal marking for the first time to Swedish football.[4] Swedish teams at the time used a sweeper with 3 or 5 in defence favouring man-marking.[5] The two were known in Sweden as English Roy and English Bob.[6]
Besides zonal marking, the defence pressed hard and maintained a high offside line. Their teams counter-attacked with long passes played in behind the opposition defence. Instead of playing with a team that was very spread out from one end of the field to the other, with a libero who stayed in his penalty area and a centre-forward who never tracked back, they set up a system of zonal defence, a back four, people pushing up and getting the ball forward into the final area much more quickly.[7]
After a short spell in Greece withEthnikos Piraeus, Houghton returned to his homeland in 1980 to manageBristol City. His spell atAshton Gate Stadium was unsuccessful as the financially stricken club were relegated and Houghton resigned after a defeat toWimbledon. Houghton's next job was withNorth American Soccer League sideToronto Blizzard between 1982 and 1984. He then managed inSaudi Arabia withAl-Ittihad before returning to Sweden atÖrgryte IS and Malmö FF again. After another spell with Al-Ittihad in 1993, he joined Swiss sideFC Zürich in April 1994 and remained in charge for just over a year before leaving in March 1995. In 1996, he became the first ever coach ofMajor League Soccer sideColorado Rapids before being sacked after just one season.
Houghton then assumed control of theChinese national team in late 1997, who had just failed to qualify for the1998 World Cup. Within weeks, Houghton was able to memorise the names of all his players, a rare feat in foreign coaches, and helped build the team's confidence and self-belief. China were placed second in theDynasty Cup very shortly after Houghton took over, and he developed a reputation for being able to implement an effective technical football program for struggling teams. They also attained a bronze medal at the1998 Asian Games. After failing to qualify for the2000 Olympic football tournament, Houghton left as manager of the Chinese national team in 1999. He later had several spells as a club manager in China and was also a coaching instructor.
He had a spell in charge ofUzbekistan in 2005 when he was charged with qualifying for the 2006 World Cup though his attempt failed after losing a controversial play-off tie againstBahrain. Uzbekistan won the first match 1–0 butFIFA declared the result void after a refereeing mistake, and Uzbekistan were eliminated on theaway goals rule.
After coaching Chinese sideChangsha Ginde for a few months, Houghton was then appointed head coach ofIndia in June 2006 by theAll India Football Federation. His appointment saw a general progress in India's performances[8] crowned by victory in theNehru Cup in August 2007. The following year India suffered a huge loss whenMaldives defeated them at the final of2008 SAFF Championship, despite a 100% record in the group stage,[9] including a victory over the Maldives. However, Houghton led India to the AFC Challenge Cup title as they beatTajikistan 4–1 in August 2008, which gave India a berth at the Asian cup 2011 in Doha. He also oversaw the Indian team to its second consecutive Nehru Cup trophy win in 2009. He resigned in 2010 after not being able to reach a new contract deal.[10] He later confirmed that his contract had been renewed until 2013, but hinted that he might review his decision after the2011 Asian Cup.[11] At the Asian Cup, India, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, lost all of theirthree group matches as predicted. Despite this, India's football authorities expressed disappointment over the national team's performance and theAll India Football Federation (AIFF) technical committee urged the executive committee to sack Houghton.On 23 April 2011, Bob Houghton tendered his immediate resignation as the India national team coach, which the AIFF accepted.[12] Houghton's last assignment as Indian coach was the AFC Challenge Cup 2012 qualifiers in Malaysia, where India topped Group B which included Pakistan, Chinese Taipei and Turkmenistan.[13]
In a 2012 article forThe Guardian,Jonathan Wilson noted that Houghton, like his compatriot Roy Hodgson, employed a zonal defence while coaching in the Allsvenskan, and that his teams pressed hard and maintained a high back-line, making use of the offside trap. They also utilised counter-attacks that were initiated with long passes played in behind the opposing defensive line.[7] Swedish academic Tomas Peterson believed that the managers "threaded together a number of principles, which could be used in a series of combinations and compositions, and moulded them into an organic totality — an indivisible project about how to play football. Every moment of the match was theorised, and placed as an object-lesson for training-teaching, and was looked at in a totality."[7]
In an article withThe Blizzard, Hodgson noted that he and Houghton were attempting to introduce a different style of defending in Swedish football, rather than elements of English football, such as the long-ball game, stating: "Instead of playing with a team that was very spread out from one end of the field to the other, with a libero who stays in his penalty area and a centre-forward who never tracks back, we set up a system of zonal defence, a back four, people pushing up and, of course, getting the ball forward into the final area much more quickly." He also believed thatSven-Göran Eriksson's tactical innovations in the Swedish game were inspired by their own work.[7]
Malmö FF
India
Al-Ittihad
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Toronto Blizzard head coach 1982–1984 | League defunct |
| Preceded by | Al-Ittihad (Jeddah) manager 1984–1986 | Succeeded by Walter Skocik |
| Preceded by | India national football team coach 2006–2011 | Succeeded by |
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Authority control databases: National |
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