Part 2 - The Players

I walked back out on to the pitch and started to watch the guys train. My knowledge of the Belgian third division wasn't great, but I could see straight away that these lot were no world beaters. There was 16 of them in total, and some of them looked no better than the Sunday League players I came up against in my own playing "career".

There was one gem, however. The player that seemed to be leading the session. He was a defender, but talented. Clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the team, I could see straight away that he was a leader. As I walked over to them he called the game to a halt and introduced himself as Gaetan Audoor. He then introduced the rest of the team to me. There seemed to be a couple of other solid pros, like Francis Serre, a wide midfielder and Jeremy Foulon, an attacking midfielder. Then there were a handful of talented youngsters like Blaise Makengo, a left midfielder, Natalino Guerra a right back, Thibault Hardy, a skilful forward, and Kanu Ndongala, a promising centre half.

It wasn't ideal, but there seemed to be the basis of a decent team in there somewhere. I knew I was going to need help though, so I headed back to my office, sat down at my desk and started to think about getting some staff.

The first thing to do would be to get myself an Assistant Manager, and after a few false starts I finally settled on Rene Verheyen. Verheyen had 26 caps for Belgium and had managed some big clubs like Waregem and Club Brugge, before spells as an Assistant. He'd also had a couple of years in charge of Deinze between 2007 and 2009, and that knowledge of this level, as well as his tactical and technical knowledge would be invaluable.