As the 2024 men’s European Championship gets ready for kick-off, the final whistle is about to blow on my CM3 Revisited mini-series.
Over the last few months, I have been looking back at Championship Manager 3, which marked the start of a real golden era for the series. I’ve just finished an epic five-season series where I rebuilt Napoli from Serie B, but now it’s time to do something a bit more topical before I bring this nostalgia trip to a close.
I’ve opened up the CM3 database and looked for the managers and head coaches of EVERY team who will be competing at Euro 2024 this summer. If I can’t find any managers (e.g. because they’re too young for CM3), I’ll instead look for their assistants or other staff members. If I’m still out of luck, then I’ll try to find anyone else related to the current squad.
GERMANY
Well, this is a good start. Julian Nagelsmann was an 11-year-old schoolboy in Bavaria when CM3 came out, and all three of his assistants were also born in the second half of the 1980s, so they are obviously absent too.
Instead, here’s Rudi Völler – the technical director of ‘Die Mannschaft’. Frank Rijkaard’s best friend was Leverkusen’s director of football in 1998, and he would later coach Germany to the Final of the 2002 World Cup. He returned to the national team set-up last year and was briefly caretaker manager prior to Nagelsmann’s appointment.
SCOTLAND
At least we know where Steve Clarke is on CM3. After finishing his playing days as a Cup Winners’ Cup winner with Chelsea, the former right-back had started his coaching career as Ruud Gullit’s number 2 at Newcastle. It would be another 20 years or so before he got his dream job at Hampden Park.
Funnily enough, Clarke’s Scotland assistant John Carver was also on the Newcastle staff at this time. I couldn’t find any other Tartan Army staff as players, though. Goalkeeping coach Chris Woods had just hung up his gloves at the end of the 1997/1998 season.
HUNGARY
Not much luck here, I’m afraid. Hungary manager Marco Rossi was a 34-year-old defender at Italian lower-league club Ospitaletto, but he was not in the CM3 database. I did find a Marco Rossi, but that one was a 20-year-old winger at Salernitana.
In the absence of Rossi and all his assistants, let’s meet former Hungary midfielder and Hertha BSC legend Pal Dardai. His 22-year-old son Márton now plays for Hertha and will be part of the Magyars’ Euro 2024 squad. (I’m sure Mikaelinho knows a thing or two about him.)
SWITZERLAND
Before he was sending Switzerland to major tournaments (and sending chocolates to Northern Ireland), Murat Yakin was a rugged centre-half on his way to winning 49 international caps. His younger brother Hakan would win 87, though the attacking midfielder didn’t break through until a couple of years later.
The Yakins are of Turkish descent – and indeed, Murat was playing for Super Lig giants Fenerbahce at this point, following a stint at VfB Stuttgart. Meanwhile, Switzerland’s current assistant manager Giorgio Contini was back home playing up front for St Gallen.
SPAIN
Luis de la Fuente’s long road to coaching La Furia Roja began at lower-league Portugalete in 1997. They are not in the CM3 database, so Luis obviously isn’t either. But we do have his assistant to show you.
Pablo Amo was a little-known 20-year-old right-back at Sporting Gijón’s B team. His real-life career as a centre-half was sadly blighted by injuries, though he still played several La Liga seasons for Deportivo and Zaragoza.
CROATIA
A defensive midfielder, Zlatko Dalic saw out his playing career at Varteks before retiring in 2000. Alas, the long-time Croatia boss didn’t quite make it into the CM3 database. Once again, I had to start searching for assistant managers.
Mario Mandzukic is too young, as is Vedran Corluka… but not Ivica Olic. Here he is as an 18-year-old at Hertha, where he obviously had some way to go before he could start banging in 100+ Bundesliga goals. Euro 2024 will be Olic’s NINTH major tournament as either a player or a coach.
ITALY
Having had plenty of fierce battles with Sampdoria during my “Canzonze Napoletana” series, I knew exactly where to find Luciano Spalletti. The bald-headed managerial mastermind actually spent just one season at Samp, having previously managed Empoli for half a decade. His best year would of course come in 2023, following a Napoli scudetto triumph by taking charge of the Azzurri.
Spalletti is currently assisted by his former Empoli centre-back Daniele Baldini, who was still at the Castellani in 1998. The aptly-named goalkeeping coach Marco Savorani was making plenty of saves in Serie C1 for Gualdo.
ALBANIA
Poor Albania. They’re in a real nasty group of death, aren’t they? Anyway, here’s their head coach Sylvinho – the Brazilian left-back who arrived at Arsenal just after they won a league and cup Double… and left shortly before they won another.
One of Sylvinho’s Albania assistants is another Brazilian who played in the Premier League in the 2000s. Middlesbrough fans might remember Doriva, who back in 1998 was a hard-working defensive midfielder at Sampdoria. I wonder if he’s looking forward to reuniting with Spalletti in their opening group game?
SLOVENIA
26 years ago, Slovenia’s current manager Matjaz Kek was playing his final season at NK Maribor, where he started and finished his career. Though it’s not on his CM3 profile, the veteran left-back did win one international cap for the Slovenes in 1992 – not long after their independence from Yugoslavia.
Kek is in his second spell as Slovenia head coach, and I’ve also found one of his assistants on CM3. Robert Englaro was a 28-year-old sweeper playing for Serie B goddesses Atalanta.
DENMARK
Before taking Denmark to the Semi Finals of Euro 2020, Kasper Hjulmand had a rather modest playing career. You can find the tall right-back at top-flight B 93, where he was presumably playing a roaming role at the love shack. No, wait, I’m thinking of the B-52s, aren’t I?
Hjulmand is assisted by Morten Wieghorst (a versatile defensive midfielder in his fourth season at Celtic) and Christian Poulsen (an 18-year-old right-back at second-tier Holbæk). Poulsen later turned into a defensive midfielder who enjoyed plenty of league and cup success… just not at Liverpool.
SERBIA
Yugoslavia did still technically exist in 1998, but they were understandably some way off their glory years. The same could be said of the iconic attacking midfielder Dragan Stojkovic, who was 33 and midway through the longest of Indian summers at J-League side Nagoya Grampus Eight.
Having captained Yugoslavia at their final World Cup under that name, Stojkovic will now become the first man to coach Serbia at two major tournaments. Piksi’s number 2 is his France ’98 team-mate Goran Djorovic, who was a left-back with Celta.
ENGLAND
There’s our Gareth. When CM3 was released, Gareth Southgate was two years removed from THAT penalty miss against Germany – and two years away from enduring further Wembley heartache with Aston Villa. (Incidentally, in my Napoli series, Southgate went on to enjoy more success after signing for Manchester United.)
Steve Holland was a youth coach at Crewe in 1998, but two other England staff members are present and correct on CM3. Technical coach Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was leading Atlético Madrid’s frontline, while goalkeeping coach Martyn Margetson was playing for Huddersfield as… a goalkeeper, obviously.
POLAND
Oh, we could have been talking about Robert Page right now. Instead, we must meet the Welsh heartbreaker Michal Probierz, who 26 years ago was a hard-working and brave right-back at Gornik Zabrze. Apparently, he was more of a midfielder in reality, but whatever.
Probierz only became Poland manager last September, succeeding the dour-faced Fernando Santos (who, incidentally, was managing Porto on CM3). Unfortunately, none of Probierz’s assistants – such as CM01/02 icon Sebastian Mila – made it onto that game for various reasons.
NETHERLANDS
Blimey… a Netherlands manager who isn’t Dick Advocaat, Guus Hiddink or Louis Van Gaal! How times change! Funnily enough, LvG’s latest successor as Oranje chief is the legendary Ronald Koeman, who became his assistant manager at Barcelona a year after hanging up his boots in 1997.
Now that we’ve mentioned Ronald, we obviously have to talk about his elder brother (and number 2) Erwin Koeman. Erwin actually played on a bit longer and retired at Groningen in 1998, so CM3 marked his first appearance as a coach. He wasn’t a very good coach on that game, mind.
AUSTRIA
I’ll try and keep this short, just in case Christoph Baumgartner fancies scoring another record-breaking goal. Ralf Rangnick took charge of German second-tier club Ulm in 1997, when – despite his tender age – he was already well into the second decade of his coaching career.
I couldn’t find assistant manager Peter Perchtold, but he was only 13 at the time, so that’s not a surprise. Perchtold was born in 1984 – a year AFTER Rangnick took his first managerial job at Viktoria Backnang! Crikey.
FRANCE
Didier Deschamps was ‘le champ’ in 1998, when he lifted the World Cup at the Stade de France. Not long after that, he left Juventus for a brief but successful stint at Chelsea. Fast forward a couple of decades, and Deschamps is now one of only two men to have won the World Cup as a captain and a manager (RIP Franz Beckenbauer).
Since taking charge of Les Bleus in 2012, Deschamps has been assisted by Guy Stephan, who starts a new CM3 save as an unemployed manager. In reality, Stephan was employed as the head coach of the France Under-17s team, having previously managed Bordeaux.
BELGIUM
Those darn whippersnappers again. Domenico Tedesco was 12 years old at the start of the 1998/1999 season. The Italian-German head coach of Belgium is clearly not on CM3.
Fortunately, one of Tedesco’s assistant managers IS on the game. Thomas Schneider (who’s perhaps best-known as Joachim Löw’s former Germany sidekick) was a solid defender with 1998 Cup Winners’ Cup runners-up VfB Stuttgart.
SLOVAKIA
A quarter-century before he was coaching both Slovakia and Napoli, Francesco Calzona was living a more modest life… as a coffee dealer, of all things. Assistant boss Gianluca Segarelli has also come a long way since he was a diminutive and mediocre right-winger at Vis Pesaro – in the fourth tier of Italian football.
That’s all I got, so here’s one more fact about Calzona. In 1999, Calzona was coaching the amateur club Tegoleto. When he resigned later that year, he was replaced with a 40-year-old banker – some bloke named Maurizio Sarri.
ROMANIA
No much luck with Romania boss Edward Iordanescu either. Edward – whose father Anghel has also managed the Tricolorii – was playing for Panionios in 1998/1999 but is absent in this database.
So let’s instead check out his assistant Florin Constantinovici. Yes, there’s a typo in his CM3 profile, which is also missing the three Romania caps he earned in the early 1990s. That being said, Florin still looks pretty strong as a centre-half… if you ignore the low Bravery and Determination.
UKRAINE
Unlike his fellow Group E managers, Sergei Rebrov IS present in CM3. Prior to his notoriously profligate spell at Tottenham, Rebrov was a genuinely fearsome striker in Valery Lobanovsky’s iconic Dinamo Kiev team of the late 1990s.
He famously partnered Andrei Shevchenko, who had literally just left Kiev for AC Milan at this point. Sheva coached Ukraine at Euro 2020 but has since moved on to a loftier position – as president of the country’s Football Association.
TURKEY
We kick off the final group by looking at yet another Italian. Vincenzo Montella – who took charge of Türkiye last year – was once a star striker in Fabio Capello’s Roma team, who were notoriously tough to beat throughout the CM3-era games. Looking at Montella’s attributes, it’s not hard to see why.
His right-hand man is attacking midfielder Daniele Russo, who had a rather more humble career and was playing for Serie B side Andria on CM3. Russo has followed Montella everywhere he has gone since the latter was appointed Catania manager in 2011.
GEORGIA
Georgia are in their first major tournament, but their manager knows a thing or two about them. Before Willy Sagnol starred at two World Cups and two Euros, the future France right-back was making good progress as a 21-year-old at Monaco.
Meanwhile, assistant manager Adel Chedli was also playing in France’s top flight, starring on the left wing for Sochaux. Though fellow coach Zurab Khizanishvili made his senior debut for Dinamo Tbilisi in 1998, he had not yet come to the attention of CM3’s scouting network.
PORTUGAL
In 2024, Roberto Martínez is refreshing a star-studded Portugal team with some fresh talent – just like he tried (and eventually failed) to do with Belgium. 26 years earlier, he was sharing a changing room with a certain Graeme Jones at Division 2 Wigan.
Jones doesn’t work with Martínez these days, but I didn’t have any problems finding Bobby’s new assistants. Ricardo Carvalho was a fresh-faced centre-half at Porto, and goalkeeping coach Ricardo (not the Manchester United flop) was at their Primeira Liga rivals Boavista.
CZECH REPUBLIC
And finally… it’s the turn of Ivan Hasek, who was appointed Czechia manager at the start of this year following Jaroslav Silhavy’s resignation. Or at least it would be Hasek’s turn if the Sparta Prague defender hadn’t retired from playing in 1998! In fact, NONE of his coaching staff are on CM3 either!
But don’t give up. Here’s Petr Gabriel… no, not that one. Petr played in the Czechs’ defence at Euro 2000. His son Adam – now a right-back at FC Midtjylland – made his international debut earlier this year and will now follow in Dad’s footsteps at Euro…
…wait, what’s that? Adam Gabriel didn’t make the Euro 2024 squad?! Who the hell am I going to pick now? [Sigh]
I hope you’ve found this article fascinating. Enjoy the Euros, and I’ll see you again soon.
Fuller FM 
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