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Michael Beale exclusive interview: The reason I had to turn down Wolves
Steven Gerrard's former assistant on flying high at QPR, his time in Brazil and wanting to break new ground for British managers
By
Thom Gibbs,
SENIOR SPORTS WRITER
27 October 2022 • 2:28pm
Michael Beale at the QPR training ground
Michael Beale's rise up the managerial pecking order has surprised many, bit not him CREDIT: Paul Grover for The Telegraph
Out past Hounslow, underneath the Heathrow flightpath, Queens Park Rangers are building something.
Three excellent pitches are in place at their new training ground, an unlovely building has been half-renovated to house the senior team but the grander structure which will replace it is under construction. Some days it gets so loud the players are dragged to the furthest pitch, so the coaches can make themselves heard.
Their message must be getting through. QPR will re-take top spot in the Championship with a win at Birmingham City on Friday and their over-achievement is being noticed. Last week, Wolves came calling for manager Michael Beale, despite a first-team managerial career of just 14 games.
On the night the story broke, QPR played Cardiff at Loftus Road in an oddly resigned atmosphere as supporters pondered losing their promising manager. On the bench a funny thing happened. Beale realised he was enjoying himself.
Queens Park Rangers manager Michael Beale
Michael Beale: 1My own team excited me. In football that’s utopia' CREDIT: PA
“My own team excited me. In football that’s utopia for a coach,” he says. “We pressed much harder early in that game because I wanted the fans to know that the players' heads weren't elsewhere.”
Beale is unusually forthcoming about being headhunted by a top flight club. Through his well-tended grapevine he heard Wolves were seeking references for him. Keen to stress he operates without an agent, Beale turned his phone off hours before the Cardiff game, a thumping 3-0 win. Afterwards QPR’s director of football Les Ferdinand told him there had been an official approach.
Wolves’ pursuit played out in public but Beale made up his mind alone in a hotel room during what sounds like a dark night of the soul. “Ultimately I just didn't want the upheaval to the club, to myself or to the people that I’ve asked to come here. The only reasons for leaving QPR right now would be selfish ones around ego, status or finance. And that's not really me.
“It would be a kick in the nuts to the owners if after just three months I was off and leaving. I don't think the project we're building here is stable enough now to have taken that hit.”
Rapid rise at QPR
Beale only arrived in June, which absurdly makes him the Championship’s 10th-longest-serving manager. “I’m delighted people think that much of me after 16 games, but I don't think that much of myself, I've still got a long way to go.”
With that said, he certainly does not lack self-belief. “I feel very, very comfortable at this level. I thought I would but you don't know until you’re in the job.” Is there any worry that an opportunity like Wolves may never come again? “No, because I'm not chasing the Premier League.”
He speaks with total politeness about Wolves and it does sound like a classic case of ‘It’s not you, it’s me’. “The big aim is to manage in the Champions League, probably for a foreign club because no English coach is doing that.
“I know the Premier League's the world's best league but I don't know if managing a lower Premier League team is better than managing an Ajax, a PSV or a Dortmund.”
On one hand this is honourable talk. On the other is Beale’s clear-headed focus on the best route for his career’s inexorable march. “Loyalty is to yourself first, and what you believe in. I don't know if jumping from one club to another is a good look.”
Michael Beale at the QPR training ground
Beale sees his future in Europe rather than at a lower-level Premier League side CREDIT: Paul Grover for The Telegraph
Perhaps he can realise his dreams in West London? He has built on a talented squad largely assembled by predecessor Mark Warburton and QPR’s head of recruitment Andy Belk. New full-backs Kenneth Paal and Manchester United loanee Ethan Laird have been especially impressive. Any of the inherited trio of Chris Willock, Ilias Chair and goalkeeper Seny Dieng could follow in Ebere Eze’s footsteps as wise buys for Premier League clubs.
Beale has no doubt he could thrive in the top flight. “I know I can work in the Premier League because every single week I turn on the TV, and in every team, there's players that I've coached. So it's not a worry about going there. It's just a matter of when, or if the right opportunity comes.
“I'd love this club to go there. It would be a miracle, considering where we've come from. This year you've got six or seven clubs that are financially way above us, and I'm sure they'll throw money at it come January, but we've got spirit here. And so far so good.”
West London via Sao Paulo
Born in south London, Beale took a peripatetic path into management. Released from Charlton as a youngster, and mildly haunted by the fear he stayed with the club too long, he has said he felt ‘lost’ for three or four months after his contract was not renewed. “It's very dangerous when you are from a council estate. Not everybody's got options. The people that I mixed with growing up, it was a mixed bag if I'm honest.”
Coaching was his route out. First it was futsal in a church hall in Bromley, then Chelsea offered him a part-time youth development job in 2003. He spent 10 years climbing their ladder before moving to Liverpool, again rising through the ranks to Under-23s manager, where he coached Trent Alexander-Arnold. Since Liverpool he has worked as assistant for two famous players, Sao Paulo hero Rogerio Ceni and Steven Gerrard at Rangers then Aston Villa. “Both of them needed me to do a lot for them, in terms of structure and coaching.”
Goalscoring goalkeeper Ceni called weeks after a long chat in Liverpool to offer him a job. “I went over [to Brazil] to politely reject, but when I got there I thought ‘I have to do it.’ I was being offered League One or League Two jobs, now I was being offered the assistant manager of Sao Paulo.”
What were the highlights? “Santos away. It’s Pele’s old stadium. We hadn't won there in seven years, we won 3-1. I used to have a video when I was a kid called Pele, the Master and his Method, and he was at Santos stadium. To go there, for an English coach, was surreal.”
After a brief return to Liverpool he became assistant to Gerrard, with success at Rangers then a promising half-season at Villa. Perhaps not coincidentally, things seemed to unravel after he left. Setting aside his disappointment for Gerrard, a man he has obvious respect for, is there anything reassuring in seeing how the team struggled after his departure? “No, I just wanted them to do well.” Would he work with Gerrard again? “100 per cent.”
It is unclear in what capacity. Currently Beale does not seem to need much help.
