Meet Jamie Vardy’s former strike partner going to World Cup with Brazil

The Football Association of Wales Uefa pro licence cohort did not know what was about to hit them. It was introductions time for the 2022 intake and, as people do when speaking to new faces, the other coaches gave little away.

But Andy Mangan is wired differently. When it was his turn in Newport, he leapt up, bounded to the screen, plugged in his laptop, and began a presentation about his life.

The first slide had four images: his parents, his wife, sons and brothers, the notorious St John’s estate in Huyton next door to where he grew up in Liverpool, and a road strewn with destination signs to represent his journey and hopes.

“My parents, because they split up so I care about everything. I look for father figures in everybody, I’m obsessed with football because when you’re a kid and that happens you look for an escape and mine was footy,” Mangan says.

“My family, because I’ve been with my wife since 19, she’s my best mate, and I’m a consistent person. If I’m away from her and our kids four nights a week working then I’m going to dedicate my life to it, because I’m putting the hours in for them.

“The John’s? Well, why am I so good at talking, why am I so fast at talking? Because I had to run away from fights. I couldn’t fight sleep. I was someone’s gimpy mate. So you learn to make yourself likeable, manage conflict, make a joke.”

And hope? “Simple, it was ‘what do I want from this course?’ To get opportunities you need to be lucky, but then [you need] to run with them. And as a coach that means being superbly prepared. If not, players will catch you out.”

As if all this wasn’t enough, Mangan then launched into one of his passions: what football can learn from American sport. Friends with Anthony Barry since meeting in Merseyside boys’ football aged eight, he has ingested the England assistant head coach’s now-famous study of 16,000 throw-ins and feels analysis can go further by looking at basketball.

“Who are the best throwers in the world? Basketball teams. Watch them, how players fake, block, move. Use tiny hand touches, jiu-jitsu to put opponents off balance. Everyone knows the Bulls are after giving Michael Jordan the ball and yet Jordan gets the ball every time. How?

“And I spoke about other ideas I have, like how about you just give the ball away? Throw it to the opposition. Then counterpress them straightaway.”

When he sat down, this Scouse whirlwind of words and infectious energy, the person next to him leant over and said: “Can we have a glass of wine later on?” It was Davide Ancelotti, Carlo’s son and at that point assistant manager of Real Madrid. From there, not just a friendship but a meeting of details-obsessed young coaching minds was forged.

It led to the remarkable scenario of Mangan signing a contract to join Real Madrid’s staff, only to be stymied by Brexit and have to stay at … Stockport, his then club. But Mangan eventually got his chance to work with the Ancelottis and at the World Cup he will be employed by Brazil — managed by Carlo with Davide the No2 — as an opposition analyst.

He was at Wembley last Tuesday scouting England, who the Seleção could meet in the quarter-finals, and the summer excites him. A stint as assistant manager at Botafogo while Davide was in charge of the Rio de Janeiro club deepened a long-held love for the Brazilian game and five months in Rio was enough to leave Mangan speaking Portuguese.

He has one of those sponge-like minds. “Um toque, dois toques, mais qualidade! Boa, muito bom!” he grins, enacting one of his Botafogo passing drills. It impresses in his full-time role as assistant to Swansea’s young Portuguese head coach Vítor Matos. “Vito is always going, ‘F*** off, you must have learnt before.’ But I didn’t, I’ve just been able to pick the language up.”

Mangan’s road to Brazil began at Blackpool, where he came through the youth system before a senior playing career involving 16 changes of club that wended its way between League One, League Two and non-League. A highlight was Fleetwood, where he and a certain strike partner, Jamie Vardy, blitzed the Conference with 50 goals between them in the 2011-12 season. Vardy got a £1million move and Mangan a cap for England C.

What did he learn from all the lower league managers he played for? “Luckily for me I had six promotions and was never relegated. So I had some good ones. Steve McMahon, John Coleman, Micky Mellon … I knew what good and bad feels like, even in the lower leagues.

“The good environments were where players really cared about each other, there was hierarchy in the dressing room and the manager knew about team-building, controlling a dressing room, putting a good gang together.

“That’s something true at any level in football. Carlo [Ancelotti] is the best because his tactics are top — and never underestimate how good he is tactically — but also his human side is unbelievable. Davide is his father’s son. He’ll manage the biggest clubs in the world because he can manage people.”

Mangan started coaching at Fleetwood Town when his playing days were winding down at Accrington Stanley. He would train, race back to Merseyside for the school run then head to the Fylde Coast for six hours at Fleetwood’s academy. He took the under-8s, under-10s, under-12s, under-16s, one group after another. Loved it. Knew coaching was his calling.

Joey Barton took him to Bristol Rovers and, after Barton’s sacking, Mangan was Rovers’ caretaker for seven games, winning four and losing one. Next came Stockport County, where he was assistant manager with particular responsibility for the attackers, helping them achieve promotion from League Two.

All the time he was working his way through the coaching badges, and on his pro licence course, as well as Davide Ancelotti, there was Mile Jedinak, then of Tottenham, Richard Kitzbichler of Bayern Munich, Dan Micciche, then of Everton, England age group coach Neil Ryan, and Matos, then Liverpool’s elite development coach and protégé of Jürgen Klopp.

Mangan didn’t doubt his coaching ability but asked himself how he could gain experience at the same level as his peers and so, leaning on his persistence and personality, persuaded a range of top clubs to host him on study visits.

He went to Manchester City to observe Pep Guardiola, Liverpool to watch Klopp, Bayern Munich to study Thomas Tuchel, Spurs to see Ange Postecoglou and Brighton & Hove Albion to spend time with Roberto De Zerbi (“coaching-wise the best — a genius”). Davide opened doors at Real Madrid, where he made enough of an impression to be invited for several visits.

One was before the second leg of Real’s 2024 Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich. Noting a tendency of Bayern’s defenders to get sucked towards the ball, Mangan suggested “tell the players to pass it in the box”. Madrid’s winning goal duly came when Nacho, faking to wrongfoot a clutch of Bayern players in the area, passed to Antonio Rüdiger, who crossed for Joselu. The Ancelottis liked that one, sending Mangan away with a signed Luka Modric shirt.

Towards the end of that summer a message came from Davide. Would he join Madrid’s staff as assistant head coach? Mangan flew to Spain and signed a contract, and the next day Madrid won the 2024-25 Uefa Super Cup. “Your first trophy!” Davide texted but soon there was a problem: as a non-EU citizen, Mangan needed a work permit and his application was denied. With Spanish appeals liable to take nine months, the Bernabéu move was abandoned.

How did he feel? “Devastated. But my kids look at their dad, and what were they going to see? You’ve got two options, you can cry — which I’m not about — or you jump back on the horse. And I thought of my mate Nick Anderton (a former Bristol Rovers player). He’d had cancer, so I was, ‘Hang on, there are far worse things, there’s no way I’m getting myself down.’

“So I was back into Stockport, bang, demanding more, working to take all the stuff I’ve seen from all these coaches and develop my own coaching game. We got to the play-offs, should have gone up … and then Davide phoned and said, ‘Do you want to go to Brazil?’ ”

The one lingering regret about Madrid involves his family. The whole clan was round at his house, celebrating, his kids jumping on his back, the day Mangan flew home from signing his contract. When it all fell through, “It was worse for the boys, because they’d told their mates and you know what it’s like in school, ‘Ahaha your dad was going to Real Madrid!’ That was a big lesson learnt for me. I said to Katie, ‘I messed up there.’ ”

Rio de Janeiro was recompense. The whole family moved together — a big decision as it meant Katie, a millinery designer, putting her business on hold, and his sons leaving their schools, friends and rugby teams (both are budding players) behind. But so worth it. “My youngest one, Findley, also picked up Portuguese and he and the other one [Loui] would both love to go back.”

He and Davide did well at Botafogo, finishing sixth to reach the Copa Libertadores preliminaries, and going unbeaten in their final ten games. But with the club about to begin a three-window transfer ban and set to shed staff, they quit — Davide to rejoin his father as Brazil No2 and Mangan to assist Matos in South Wales.

Swansea? “Vítor is a mini Jürgen. Top. His pressing is different level. The owners seem incredible, the training ground’s fantastic, the group is good. The Championship is tough, with a lot of richer clubs, but there’s a chance of building something here.”

In any other interview, our protagonist meeting Snoop Dogg would be an intro but with Mangan’s story it is just the footnote. When the rap superstar, a minority investor in Swansea, visited the club recently he was given a tour of the training ground and came in to meet the technical staff.

“A diamond,” Mangan says, “a good fella. The thing I loved about him was when he walked in he must have known everybody wanted a photograph, but nobody wanted to ask, so he said, ‘Really nice to meet you all — hey I’d love to take a picture with you. Can we have a photo.’

“And I thought you’re a clever person, emotionally intelligent. The best are.”

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