Real deal! He's worked with Ronaldo, Bale and Ibrahimovic... the English coach with an unbeatable CV is making waves in Madrid



There will be no English manager in Monday’s Champions League last-16 draw but there will be a very good English manager-in-the-making. Paul Clement has been preparing big players for big games since 2009 when Carlo Ancelotti made him his No 2 at Chelsea.

He might well have been his own boss by now but the games keep getting bigger and so do the players.



Working with Ancelotti, last year it was Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the French title with Paris Saint-Germain, this year it’s Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid.



VIDEO: Scroll down to see Real Madrid in training for upcoming fixture against Osasuna



Experience: Clement has coached Chelsea¿s Under-16s, their reserve side and their Premier League-winning side

‘From day one (at Real) I noticed in similar training drills to the ones we used at Chelsea and PSG the execution here was at a much higher level,’ he says.

‘I can think of one exercise we have done at all three clubs and myself and Carlo (Ancelotti) looked at each other and then back at the players and we couldn’t believe the level they achieved.

‘Chelsea had fantastic players but they were different. They were a mature, powerful team, strong physically. PSG had a big range in quality but here, young players to old, the technical level is very high.’

So how does a coach test a £100million player when training drills for mere mortals just aren’t stretching him? ‘You reduce the time and the space so they think quicker and have to act quicker,’ says Clement.

Advice: Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti (left) and Clement (right) give instructions to Gareth Bale

And he talks about the dedication that sets the very best apart. Their ability to utilise what he calls the ‘one percenters’, the marginal gains that separate success from failure.

Whether it be Ronaldo (right) ensuring he makes the perfect recovery from every game — seeking out the physio for a rub-down at 6am after arriving back from a Champions League game against Galatasaray — or Bale requesting an extra hour’s finishing practice.

Quality: Clement has helped better some of the world's footballing superstars, and is now tasked with improving Bale

‘What I like about Gareth is he is a normal down-to-earth guy in the dressing room who knuckles down on the training ground and who wants to improve,’ says Clement.

‘He went through a period when he was getting in good scoring positions and not finishing at the level that he would have liked.

‘So the next day he is saying to me, “Can we do some extra shooting?” He is really on top of his own game and in my experience working with top players, whether it be Frank (Lampard), John (Terry) or Ashley (Cole) at Chelsea, or Zlatan at PSG, without exception they all work incredibly hard. They have talent but they do all those other little things that make the difference.’

Zinedine Zidane, the third man in the Real Madrid ‘boot room’, believes Bale can learn from Ronaldo and there is a feeling he could become as good a player.

Clement sees subtle differences between the two.

‘I think Gareth tends to come in between the lines a little bit more and play while Cristiano loves to take the ball and go directly to the goal,’ he says. ‘But both are athletes and goalscorers.’

Clement’s summing-up of Ronaldo comes later when I ask him about football philosophies. It is brilliantly succinct: ‘Football is simple,’ he says. ‘There is a goal and you have to try to put the ball in it. And I think that is what Cristiano thinks when he is playing.’

The man? Clement is on the FA¿s radar and Roy Hodgson will surely encourage his involvement

The mention of Lampard, Terry and Cole is a reminder that there could be a few familiar faces awaiting Clement in the Champions League knockout phase this season.

Of the English teams in the last 16, the two teams Real can draw in Nyon on Monday are the same sides he sees as best equipped this season — Manchester City and Arsenal.

‘Manchester United are in that transition period and Chelsea are too, a little bit — it’s not a typical Jose team compared with his last spell at Chelsea.

‘All four sides are strong but, if I had to pick two, I would say Arsenal and Manchester City.

‘City have matured as a team having won the league together and overcome two disappointing runs in the Champions League to now qualify.

‘They have got an experienced coach who has coached here and they have added some good players. And Arsenal are looking good as well this year. I went through their team the other day and the number of creative midfielders they have — they really play now. They look strong.’

Arsenal’s creative forces have been augmented by the signing of Mesut Ozil who Clement coached briefly in Madrid in the summer before he moved to London. He says: ‘There is a lot of competition for places here.Gareth came and there were no guarantees of anyone playing regularly and Mesut wanted that guarantee.

National duty: Is it only a matter of time before Hodgson looks to Clement's experience?

‘It couldn’t be given and so he decided to move on. He has got the experience of playing four years here at a very big club and he goes into a club that has probably underachieved now for a good number of years. He goes into a dressing room where he is a senior figure — it’s a perfect time in his career for that.’

Between now and the return of Champions League matches, Real have to try to overtake Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in La Liga and safely negotiate the early rounds of the Spanish Cup.

The games come thick and fast and Clement says: ‘The old style in England would be the first day in after a game, or a day off, you’d kill the players. But things have moved on a lot from that now. We’ll train light today, always with the ball right from the warm-ups.’

Then there are sessions to be planned. ‘You always work from the game and then come backwards,’ he says. ‘You don’t invent things for the sake of it.

‘Football is not complicated. We do not design or make up things. It’s not a circus. We try to keep things simple and very much related to the game.

Journeyman: Clement also worked under Ancelotti at PSG last season alongside Claude Makelele

‘The pass-and-move drills are related to control and diagonal passing. Not playing straight, not playing sideways, always with the emphasis on open body position and trying to play forward on angles. And everything we ask for in a drill represents something that we want to see in games.’

World class: Clement has moved from managing one superstar at PSG in Ibrahimovic to several at the Bernabeu

And is there anything new any more or has coaching homogenised to such an extent that Bayern Munich’s recent concerns over leaks from their Sabener Strasse training ground are exaggerated?

‘I think coaches in general like to be quite guarded about the team that they are going to play or the exercises that they are doing but I am not sure there are that many secrets,’ he says.

‘Game to game you might alter some little intricate things.

‘Certainly I wouldn’t put set-plays up in the opposition dressing room. But ultimately the set play is all about the quality of the ball you are going to put into the box and the movement.’

With so many training drills repeated from one club to the next and from season to season, one of Clement’s most important jobs is keeping players stimulated by the work. ‘Boredom can set in,’ he says. ‘It can be tedious: the travel, the team meetings and the training.

‘Imagine you have a player who is 33, 34 years old; how many training sessions has he done in his career?’

Walking away from Madrid would be madness right now. With Bale signed and Ronaldo in such form, the Champions League slot machine that Madrid have been shovelling coins into for the last 10 years might finally be about to pay-out in shiny winner’s medals. But Clement clearly sees management as the next step at some point.

Round the block: Clement worked with Glenn Hoddle at Chelsea (left) and Jean Tigana at Fulham (right)



‘I am thinking about it,’ he says. ‘Just before I came here there were a couple of opportunities including the Championship and another job abroad but I was really excited about coming here.’

CLEMENT'S FINE CV

Paul Clement has coached Chelsea’s Under-16s, their reserve side, their Premier League winning side, PSG’S Ligue 1 champions team, and now Real Madrid.

He was also at Chelsea when Glenn Hoddle was revolutionising their style and at Fulham under Jean Tigana.

As an experienced English coach, he is on the FA’s radar and Roy Hodgson will surely encourage his involvement.

Clement says: ‘I know Roy, he is someone who I respect a lot as a real on-the-field coach.’

He’ll have an impressive cv when the moment comes and why not go in at the highest level?

Rene Meulensteen, Steve Clarke and Andre Villas-Boas have all taken Premier League No 1 jobs having cut their teeth coaching as No 2s.

Clement, whose father Dave played for QPR and England, didn’t make it as a professional player.

But Villas-Boas, Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger and Rafa Benitez all coached top clubs and won European honours without top playing careers behind them. ‘I would love to have had a playing career but when you are playing you are very often thinking about yourself,’ says Clement. ‘When you are learning to be a coach you think about the bigger picture.

‘I have been thinking about the bigger picture for a long time now. Possibly it’s an advantage.’

For now, though, he has Real Madrid’s obsession with what would be their 10th European Cup to deal with. ‘This is a fantastic place to be,’ he says. ‘I will try to stay here for as long as I can.