Big Phil

The English press is all a-twitter today with the news that the FA have been in talks with current Portuguese coach Phil Scolari, aka "Big Phil" (I so wish his nickname was "Sizeable Phillip."), to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson as English coach after the World Cup. Rumor has it they've offered the job to Scolari, which has prompted both excitement and the expected patriotic backlash. Carrie Dunn has a useful primer on Big Phil that's worth checking out.

If all this is true, I'm sure Scolari will be an excellent English manager, but it's the way that all this has been done that has left a bad taste in my mouth. Isolating and then firing Sven before the tournament started (and for totally non-football reasons), coupled with the monumental silliness of the whole interview process makes this a textbook example of how not to run a national team program.

UPDATE: The Evening Standard says that Scolari's accepted the offer.