Carlos Corberanaway
(Image via HTAFC)
Matt Shaw, Founder.
Twitter: @TTCMatt
All your life all you asked
When is your Daddy gonna talk to you
But we're living in another world
Tryin' to get your message through
No one heard a single word you said
They should have seen it in your eyes
What was going around your head
Oh, he's a Carlos Corberunaway
Bromby's choice learned fast
All those things he couldn't say
Ooh, he's a Carlos Corberunaway
The Philippines. Day 7. Captains log.
It’s 1am and I’m lying on a spring mattress in a box room. The air conditioning has broken. ‘Real Feel’ says it’s 39c outside, it’s far more in here and I’m wetter than an otter’s pocket. The roof fan is doing nothing but recirculating hot air which is a bit like me with this article… Over the fan I can hear a slight buzz every now and then of the mosquitos. These b*^%&rd mosquitos. I’ve 34 bites on my ankles and feet and the repellent isn’t working. Another buzzes past my ear and the noise amplifies slightly, it feels like with every buzz they’re laughing and singing… “YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARRRE? YOU’RE IN THE JUNGLE BABY, YOU’RE GONNA DIIIIIIEEEEEEE”. It’s so hot it’s making me hallucinate 80’s rock bands all over the place right now.
Going back to Bon Jovi and the lyrics sort of felt quite apt in a way. Roll back a few days and I was a shock of anger, confusion and frustration at the news of Carlos Corberan’s resignation. I liked Carlos a lot, ok we had a rocky period between March and May of last year where I may have said a few little things but overall, I enjoyed the approach he brought in both styles, his personality, his dropping in of “I thinaay” in every interview and of course the run last season. But things don’t always stay nice in Huddersfield for long, we’re not allowed nice things.
Since that tweet, I’ve mellowed a little and I’d like to think developed a little more common sense on the situation after temporarily losing my head. A lot of people lost their heads. The overriding suspicion was that Carlos Corberan left because he wasn’t being backed by the board with players to push us on next season, but maybe that’s only a tiny bit of the story to the point of potential irrelevance. But we’ll come back to that.
Before reading on I want you to know that the rest of this article is based on a mix of supposition, theory and a little insider information. We all hear bits of insider information sometimes. I tend not to post them on open social platforms because if you do and it’s sensitive, those people tend not to tell you anything else. But I had heard in June of a couple of rumblings of discontent from Carlos due to his lack of autonomy. In truth, I didn’t think much of it at the time and just presumed Town would acquiesce to anything that he wished. After all, he’d just taken the team to 3rd, he was “King Carlos” in the eyes of supporters (well most of them) and he’d earnt his right.
Many fans were further aggrieved with Leigh Bromby’s comments on Radio Leeds whereby he proclaimed that the visions of the club and Carlos Corberan no longer aligned. “More like Hoyle’s a tight bastard!” was the call on social media. I get it, my thoughts were there too momentarily before I sat on it a bit more. So, let’s delve into this vision. This is what Leigh Bromby said upon Carlos’s appointment:
The bit that reaches out and grabs you is that Leigh identifies the philosophy as aligning with that of the club. That’s the interesting bit to the fan, but there is much more to this than the style on the pitch. It’s about hierarchy. It’s about Carlos looking after the coaching, the medical team looking after the medical side, the recruitment team looks after the transfers and other departments also have their own leaders whilst Leigh Bromby sits at the head of the table reporting in to the owner. The club may question this approach going forward after three of the last four managers developed frustrations with it and in truth Jan Siewert was barely here long enough to get annoyed by it. But Danny Cowley had severe issues with the reporting lines as did David Wagner and now so it seems so did Carlos Corberan who all wanted to sit at the head of the table.
Why didn’t the club bend to his request?
David Wagner.
GASP! Yes, my favourite David Wagner. Owner Dean Hoyle bent and broke to pretty much every request that Wagner brought to him. More autonomy? You got it. Several new contracts? You got it. Dean did everything to support the best manager this club had had in a long time and it worked up until the summer of 2018. So, the question is, if we’ve stumbled upon gold dust again, why is Dean not bending to this supposed request? After all this is perhaps the real crux of Terriers fan frustration - you’ve got the perfect head coach allow him to do the job he wants.
Well cast your minds back to 2018 - that summer. It’s enough to still send a shudder down every spine in Kirklees. Huddersfield Town in my opinion were ill prepared for what came. They’d lost Director of Football David Moss in a head of the table power struggle with David Wagner, failed to replace him in a timely manner and the staffing seemed ill equipped for the rigours of that period, it was all centred around a tiring David Wagner increasingly given more things to do. Huge mistakes were made that we shan’t speak about in this article, not necessarily by King Dave but as a collective. Over the 2018/19 season everything now seemed to hang on David Wagner - he was the centre piece as the fire raged around the club. Everything that the club had built up to the summer of 2018 was crackling like metaphorical logs in a fire place. When David Wagner left, the jig was up. The other departments were not sufficiently experienced or capable enough to wrap around for the loss of such an important and iconic figure - the same with Dean Hoyle and his illness. Lessons were learnt.
Not many decent Directors of Football (or Head of Football Operations in our case) would come to a club and be subservient to a head coach. Town struggled to replace David Moss and ended up with Olaf Rebbe who was more operational than inspirational so Town have since altered the structure and hierarchy of staff and it seems that this is a structure that they are unwilling to sway from. The mess of 2018 and how sour it quickly turned after losing just 2 members of staff still haunts the club four years on and the structures are now in place to protect and prevent so much pressure on one or two men. There is to be no compromise.
Speaking of compromise, it appears that this was a sticking point for Carlos Corberan as well. The man who led Huddersfield Town to their highest finish in the second tier since 1970, I believe wanted more say in footballing matters. You have to remember who Carlos’s recent mentor was and a man that he still speaks to with great regularity. Marcelo Bielsa. Bielsa is a totalitarian whose recent spell at Leeds saw them gain great success, a spell of course that Carlos Corberan was part of and one that perhaps set a blueprint in his mind for how he saw his role evolving. Town though, saw no evolution and this is where the alignment comment stems from. Or if I’m to go back to the theme of 80/90’s rock bands:
That’s the last rock metaphor I promise.
The timing of Carlos’s resignation could indicate to a frustration that Town have been lethargic in the transfer window compared to last season. With Colwill, Anjorin, Sinani and Pipa moving on or back to parent clubs and Harry Toffolo and Lewis O’Brien potentially following them out of the door, Town when starting pre-season looked considerably weaker on paper than they did at the end of last season. With rumours persisting that we refused to pay the money for Zian Flemming and Carlton Morris, then Carlos could have been forgiven for thinking that matching or bettering last season’s playoff heroics was a forlorn hope. Should Town fail to hit the top 6, then it’s his reputation and no one else’s which suffers the most damage. This could have played into his mind as well as potential autonomy issues.
So, to conclude. I don’t really think this resignation is down to anything conspiratorial or to a lack of investment planning. But rather down to one man who on the back of an excellent season believed that his vision and direction for the club deserved more value and consideration and one who no longer wished to sit in the passenger seat of this particular journey. Town on the other hand wished to keep their integrity and structure intact and were unwilling to see to this request. A disappointing end to what was a rollercoaster journey, and I wish Carlos all the best for the future, he helped to make following Huddersfield fun again and he quite rightly can take a lot of credit into his next role.
Did Town make the right or wrong call? Let me know in the comments.
