Lifelong Learning Worth Being Involved In

While some players in the Premiership will have enjoyed the international break, that does not mean everybody in the top flight ahs been sitting with their feet up. Managers still do their home work and also work hard at passing on their expertise for those that will follow them into the dug-outs. Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha headed back to Portugal to deliver a series of lectures at the University of Lisbon, as part of a special postgraduate course for football coaches has been devised by Professor Antonio Veloso and Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho.

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Caixinha is the only manager on the teaching staff alongside Mourinho, with the remaining lecturers made up of the likes of former Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry, Barcelona’s physical coach Antonio Jose Gomez and well-known scout Damien Comolli. Caixinha explained: "It is a course which started last season, and Jose Mourinho is in charge of it alongside the professor of the University. They provide a postgraduate on High Performance and Football Coaching, and they gather Portuguese coaches and people from around the world. So we go there to pass our experiences and the way we work with the clubs we have been at so far."

Portugal has been providing some of the world’s best-known coaches, such as Mourinho, Andre Villas-Boas and Leonardo Jardim in recent years. Six coaches in this season’s Champions League group stage are from Portugal , with Caixinha believing the blend between academic study and practical study to be the reason behind their success. He went on: "We have invested a lot in the preparation and the education, and that comes from the relationship between the universities and the federation. I did my coaching badges here in Scotland, but I tried to mix what I learned in the academic side with what I learned on the coaching badge courses. I think the Portuguese are a little bit different in that respect as we have received continuous information and education on the coaches’ side on a regular basis, and I think that is very important for us. It is one of the reasons why, at the moment, we have six coaches in the Champions League – and that means a lot for us."