‘Not Pep Guardiola’s assistant!’ - England legend & European Championship winner Jill Scott explains move into coaching at Man City
- Retired in 2022 after memorable career
- Has remained on television screens
- Now heading into academy role with Blues
WHAT HAPPENED? The Lionesses icon, who won 161 caps for her country and savoured European Championship glory in 2022, hung up her boots last year and has since been doing a spot of punditry while also winning I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! The 36-year-old is now ready to pass her vast experience on to the next generation, with a role set to be taken up within City’s academy system – despite suggestions that she could be drafted in to Guardiola’s backroom team at the Etihad Stadium.
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WHAT THEY SAID: Scott has told The Overlap, in partnership with Sky Bet, of her new adventure: “Coaching is a big passion of mine – I love coaching. I even did a grassroots session the other day and I had little six year olds checking their shoulder before receiving the ball, and I just get a real buzz out of helping people. I’m going to be doing a bit of coaching at Manchester City, it got blew up a bit as if I’m going to be Pep Guardiola’s assistant.
"That’s the media world that we’re living in. It’s going to be coaching girls and boy's academy. In terms of the detail that Man City provide, it’s so interesting for me. It opened this whole new world of football and that was at the age of 26. I’m excited about that, I’m obsessed with passing drills. Sometimes I’ll sit around on a Friday night watching old Bayern Munich passing drills on YouTube, looking at bits of detail. I know that’s my passion but I’m not ready yet to go into a full schedule of football.”
THE BIGGER PICTURE: While Scott will not be working alongside Guardiola at City, she is eager to take as many lessons as possible from the Catalan’s coaching team. She added: “I’ve watched some of Pep Guardiola’s sessions, I took my nephews along to watch a session. I’ll be observing the academy training in the first few weeks and seeing how they work but it’s hard to learn from Pep because he’s always a genius in his own head. Sometimes you can watch a coach who is very structured, but he’s very emotionally intelligent and you’ll see his session go one way and then he’ll change it.
"There are some coaches you can follow and some who are just a genius in their own mind. There’s a lot of coaches with good detail at the academy – the assistant of Pep, Rodolfo [Borrell], we had him coach us at the women’s team – he used to work at Barcelona. I hung onto every word he said on receiving the ball in the pockets. I’m excited, I’m going to go in there and ask as many questions as I can because I have a lot to learn. I’m nowhere near a finished article of a coach but I know I’ll work hard to get better.”
IN THREE PHOTOS:
WHAT NEXT? Scott spent nine memorable years with City as a player, helping them WSL title glory in 2016 alongside three FA Women’s League Cup triumphs and a hat-trick of FA Women’s Cup wins.