Huth in no rush to move in management despite wealth of experience

Ooi Kin Fai

Huth in no rush to move in management despite wealth of experience image

Winning the Premier League title over two different decades, former Germany international Huth can lay claim to have had a very successful career in his adopted country. Moving to Chelsea in 2002 from the FC Union Berlin youth team when he was only 18 years ago, he has not looked back since.

Made part of the squad in the Chelsea side that landed two successive league titles in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, Huth learned the ropes in English football while lifting trophies. Under the guidance of Jose Mourinho in his first Chelsea iteration, Huth was a trusted soldier of the Portuguese manager despite his teenage age.

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Subsequent moves to Middlesbrough, Stoke City and Leicester City followed before Huth finally called it quits at the end of last season at the age of 34. A relatively young age to retire considering the advancement in medical technology in today's game but the former centre back is just enjoying life as it is.

Roberth Huth, Chelsea, 2005

"A few times, nothing too big. But I genuinely enjoyed playing in England, in the Premier League, playing all the games and the stadiums are always full. So there was no need for me to look anywhere else because I was happy at every club I was. Just didn't feel the need to change." 

"At the moment, I'm not too interested in coaching, maybe something in the future. But at the moment, I'm just happy to stay away from football and watch the games. When I want to go into coaching, then I will because if I want to do, I want to do it properly and at 100%," Huth told Goal when he was down in Kuala Lumpur recently.

Claudio Ranieri, Jose Mourinho, Steve McClaren, Gareth Southgate, Tony Pulis and Mark Hughes are all the managers that Huth has played under, it's fair to say it has been various different styles of management that he has experienced and picked up valuable lessons. 

But the one particular reunification at a different club that saw Huth promoted into legendary status at Leicester where he was paired up once again with Ranieri to help the club to achieve the incredible Premier League triumph back in the 2015-16 season.

Against all the odds, Leicester won the title as all the supposed heavyweights of the league were pushed aside in a amazing run. A feat underlined by the massive 10-point gap that separated them from second place Arsenal at the end of the 38 rounds of matches played.

Leicester City 2016 Premier League champions

Huth part of the team that proved themselves to be the most consistent that season alongside several individuals who has since moved onto to bigger and better things like N'Golo Kante going to Chelsea FC and Riyadh Mahrez moving to Manchester City.

But such is the nature of a fairy tale, that a repeat looks very unlikely to happen and Huth is well aware of the demands that today's football would require. While not totally discounting the possibility of another team matching Leicester's run in breaking the top six monopoly, he certainly sees how difficult task it is.

"I hope so. I hope someone can. But I do think that it's going to be a little bit more difficult for clubs to come in now as the money in the top six is crazy. You have to spend to be a big enough squad. It would take a big investment from that point of view. The hardest part was just to keep winning.

"When you've won fix or six games, it's really easy to say next game don't matter but we managed to have that mentality of just keep winning and staying focus on the job. Certainly in the February or March part when games are getting less.

"There's light at the end of the tunnel and you can see how many games you got left. That's when you start thinking what could be. But the Manchester City game away was the one where everyone starts thinking this could be it for us, added Huth.  

 

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Ooi Kin Fai

Goal's correspondent for Malaysia