It happened last summer to German coach Jupp Heynckes. It happened two weeks ago to Italian Gigi Simoni. It was the turn of Dane Morten Olsen last weekend and before this week is out Dutchman Louis Van Gaal could be another name on the list.
What list? The list of successful coaches to have been given the sack, notwithstanding a recent winning record. Jupp Heynckes brought pride and glory back to Real Madrid last season when the club regained the Champions Cup for the first time in 32 years. His reward was a push out the door almost as soon as Real had beaten Juventus in last May's final - Dutchman Guus Hiddink was called in to replace him.
Simoni won the UEFA Cup with Inter Milan last season while also guiding the club to second place in Serie A, thus winning a lucrative Champions League place. When he was sacked two weeks ago, Inter were hardly down and out. They were on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League quarter-finals (duly accomplished under new coach, Romanian Mircea Lucescu) and they were in seventh place in Serie A, only five points behind leaders Fiorentina.
Ironically, on the day he was sacked, Simoni was presented with a "manager of the year" award by his coaching colleagues. UEFA Cup and Champions League performances notwithstanding, Simoni got the heave-ho just as soon as Massimo Moratti, the club's owner, tired of the negative Inter performances - a period, incidentally, when the club has been deprived of regularly injured Brazilian, Ronaldo.
Last weekend, Ajax coach Olsen was the latest big name to get the chop. Last season, Olsen led Ajax to a league and cup double in Holland but those triumphs were no protection against a disappointing autumn which climaxed with a 3-0 defeat by Porto and consequent elimination from the Champions League last Wednesday. That unexpected reversal saw the value of Ajax shares plummet on the Amsterdam stock exchange and prompted the Ajax board to dismiss Olsen on Saturday, replacing him with ex-Ajax and Holland defender Jan Wouters.
There was a time when success guaranteed a manager's future, a time when results would do the talking for him. Heynckes, Simoni and Olsen have recently discovered that that time is past.
The next man to suffer could be the Barcelona manager, Louis Van Gaal. It was bad enough for Van Gaal that, for the second year running, the mighty Catalan club also failed to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Champions League in a group from which Bayern Munich and Manchester United emerged. Worse still is a recent bad run in the league which was topped off with a 3-1 home loss on Sunday to newly promoted Villareal, who were making their first visit to the Nou Camp.
Barcelona, now 10th in the league, are in their worst position in 19 years. While Van Gaal has been putting on a brave face, pointing out that things were much the same this time last year but Barcelona went on to register a league and cup double, the Barcelona fans and media have been looking and sounding less than patient.
By the end of Sunday's game the 70,000 crowd at the Nou Camp were waving white handkerchiefs in a traditional Catalan protest. By yesterday morning, the Barcelona-based sports daily El Mundo was careful to avoid euphemisms when running a headline about Van Gaal reading: "Not Even One More Day".
Van Gaal's position is not helped by his difficulties with at least two of his star-studded squad, Brazilian midfielder Rivaldo and Portuguese goalkeeper Vitor Baia, the latter having been kicked out of the first team squad after criticising his coach. Nor do recent reports in the Madrid-based sports daily Marca help. They suggest that the Catalan club has already come to a preliminary agreement to sign a three year contract with Italian coach Fabio Capello, a contract due to begin in July 1999. Furthermore, Capello has been allegedly offered $500,000 dollars just to keep himself available between now and the end of the season.
Capello, you may recall, emigrated to Spanish soccer two seasons ago with instant success, winning the league at the first time of asking with Real Madrid. Despite a spectacular failure (and subsequent sacking) last season on his prodigal-son return to AC Milan, Capello's reputation is still solid in Spain. Van Gaal beware. On the other hand, he needn't worry too much as Capello, Lucescu and Hiddink have found, he is sure to quickly get another chance on the managerial merry-go-round. All across Europe, it would seem, top level managerial jobs become available with consistent regularity.
