Ian Cathro – The Young Scot
Ian Cathro less than three and a half years ago was coaching kids in a secondary school in Dundee. In May 2012 he was leading the Scottish Football Association’s performance school in his hometown of Dundee developing the skills of the region’s most promising under 12’s and early teens.
Then a coaching course organised by the SFA brought a chance to meet with retired Portuguese goalkeeper Santo, who worked under Jose Mourinho at Porto, and an offer to join him at Rio Ave in Portugal’s Primeira Liga. The relationship between the pair was excellent and extremely beneficial, two seasons at the small club in northern Portugal brought a sixth-place league finish, two cup finals and European qualification for the first time. Santo was subsequently recruited by Valencia in the summer. Cathro soon followed.
Before moving to Portugal, all of Cathro’s coaching experience had been with schoolchildren – first at Dundee United, where his pupils included Sporting Lisbon’s Ryan Gauld, then at the SFA performance school. Now the Dundonian has been working with the likes of Alvaro Negredo and World Cup winner Shkodran Mustafi.
Considering Cathro’s own playing experience had amounted to injury-scarred spells with the youth teams at Forfar and Brechin – “I was never a good player, it wasn’t a major sob story” – it is quite a leap.
Cathro managed to learn Portuguese quickly, and has already managed to pick up Spanish, although not fluent just yet. More pressing than learning to communicate correctly, is learning how to coach at a big club. Cathro has no intention of being an assistant for long, so has been determined to squeeze as much from his time at Valencia as he can.
As far as he is concerned, his career has not yet started. He describes himself as a ‘work in progress’ and calls this his ‘apprenticeship’. He is at Valencia to learn how to be a manager. Just as he was at Rio Ave.
After now announcing his resignation from Valencia and rejecting the chance to join Steve McClaren at a new look Newcastle United, he has stated that he now wants to make an impression as a first team manager. We shall see whether any teams are interested in the young Scot shortly.
Ian Cathro less than three and a half years ago was coaching kids in a secondary school in Dundee. In May 2012 he was leading the Scottish Football Association’s performance school in his hometown of Dundee developing the skills of the region’s most promising under 12’s and early teens.
Then a coaching course organised by the SFA brought a chance to meet with retired Portuguese goalkeeper Santo, who worked under Jose Mourinho at Porto, and an offer to join him at Rio Ave in Portugal’s Primeira Liga. The relationship between the pair was excellent and extremely beneficial, two seasons at the small club in northern Portugal brought a sixth-place league finish, two cup finals and European qualification for the first time. Santo was subsequently recruited by Valencia in the summer. Cathro soon followed.
Before moving to Portugal, all of Cathro’s coaching experience had been with schoolchildren – first at Dundee United, where his pupils included Sporting Lisbon’s Ryan Gauld, then at the SFA performance school. Now the Dundonian has been working with the likes of Alvaro Negredo and World Cup winner Shkodran Mustafi.
Considering Cathro’s own playing experience had amounted to injury-scarred spells with the youth teams at Forfar and Brechin – “I was never a good player, it wasn’t a major sob story” – it is quite a leap.
Cathro managed to learn Portuguese quickly, and has already managed to pick up Spanish, although not fluent just yet. More pressing than learning to communicate correctly, is learning how to coach at a big club. Cathro has no intention of being an assistant for long, so has been determined to squeeze as much from his time at Valencia as he can.
As far as he is concerned, his career has not yet started. He describes himself as a ‘work in progress’ and calls this his ‘apprenticeship’. He is at Valencia to learn how to be a manager. Just as he was at Rio Ave.
After now announcing his resignation from Valencia and rejecting the chance to join Steve McClaren at a new look Newcastle United, he has stated that he now wants to make an impression as a first team manager. We shall see whether any teams are interested in the young Scot shortly.
