Liam Rocinia was announced as Chelsea’s new manager on January 6th, replacing Enzo Maresca, who suddenly resigned. Kei Akiyoshi (Football from an EFL Perspective) introduces the unknown roots and career of the 41-year-old, who was born into a soccer family whose father is also a former player, coach, and commentator, and has established a reputation at Strasbourg, which is affiliated with BlueCo like his new team, while serving as a manager for EFL clubs.
“I need someone to look after the club for me. I trust you. I want you to oversee everything until we find a buyer. It could be six months, it could be two weeks. What do you think?”
As if all else had been exhausted, Mike Bateson rang a friend’s phone. His title is Chairman of Torquay United, who have just been relegated from League Two (Fourth Division) to the National League.
Bateson took over in 1990 and, after 16 years of managing to stay in the Football League despite many hardships, Bateson found a consortium to take over in October 2006. However, after many twists and turns due to the announcement of the stadium relocation plan, the reckless policy of recruiting reinforcements from overseas, and above all, the failure to pay the promised installments, Bateson was drawn back to the chairmanship of Torquay in March of the following year.
The team is in a hopeless situation, with only four players under contract. Still, they must somehow find a new buyer and work on building a squad for next year. On May 17, 2007, the “friend” he called, desperate for help, was also a member of the club he previously coached from 2002 to 2006.
He immediately accepted the request, and a press conference was called the same day. Reporters gathered in the clubhouse and the appointment of “new manager: Leroy Rosenior” was announced. Shortly after the impromptu press conference ended, Rosenior’s phone rang again.
“It’s Mike. LeRoy, you won’t believe it…the club sold.”
“Are you kidding me, Mike?”
“I’m serious. The consortium saw the press conference on TV, realized how serious I was in appointing you, and agreed to the terms. The sale has been completed. Oh, and they want to bring in their own director.”
This was the moment when a legendary record in English football, which is still and will probably continue to be passed down, was born: “The shortest managerial tenure at a professional club: 10 minutes.”
I also experienced the FA Cup final, but I took a detour to become a commentator with the aim of becoming a coach.
LeRoy Rosenior, who was already building a solid career as a commentator on the BBC, said the incident was “definitely a positive” as it featured on the BBC’s traditional comedy show Have I Got News for You the next day. To begin with, he had no bad feelings toward Bateson, and perhaps because he had become a man of the hour, he even got a new job commentating on the African Cup of Nations. As a result of this incident, he became more serious about his work in the TV industry and anti-racism campaigning, which has been his life’s work, and he was later awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2018 for his work.
Leroy had two children. He played for Fulham in 1984, when his older brother was born, and for QPR in 1986, when his younger brother was born, so football inevitably became part of the family’s weekend routine.
Particularly keen was her brother Liam, who prefers to pronounce his name as “Rosinya”, unlike his father who pronounces it “Rosenior”.
When his father’s friends would gather at his parents’ house to discuss football, Liam would always pretend to be asleep, distance himself from the other children, and eavesdrop on the conversation. At West Ham, where his father moved when he was four years old, he was always allowed into the changing room before games and played with the players until just before the game.
At the age of nine, he became obsessed with Charles Hughes’ classic book “FA Coaching Book of Soccer Tactics and Skills,” which instilled the concept of the “kick and rush” (although he did not agree with the content), and later became a player-manager for his elementary school team, instilling his own philosophy in practice. Even at Bristol City, where he spent his time in the academy, he was always asking tactical questions to the coaching staff, trying to solve things he didn’t understand one by one.
His playing career spanned 16 years, where he met various coaches, played in the Premier League and was fortunate enough to be on the pitch in the FA Cup final (in 2014 with Hull City). However, for him, even that period was just the beginning of his career as a coach, which he had dreamed of since childhood. In the summer of 2018, he retired from active duty at the young age of 34, without leaving any regrets.
At his last club, Brighton immediately offered him a job as assistant manager of their Under-23 team to support his dream. It was also during this period that he met fellow former Brighton players Paul Winstanley and Sam Jewell (he also met Lawrence Stewart during his time at Hull).
At the same time, Rosinia embarks on another strategic career choice.“Coaches’ Voice” (July 2024)I quote his words in.
“I always wanted to be a manager, but I knew I didn’t have the foundations of a successful playing career. I played in the Premier League, but I wasn’t a top-level international player, so I needed to prove my worth in my own way. So I started working in TV, analyzing matches for Sky Sports.”
Using touchscreen studio commentary, which is now commonplace, he quickly raised the bar on Sky broadcasts by a notch or two. His appearances were mainly in the EFL, as Premier League broadcasters were joined by fellow pioneers Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville. His keen observation of Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds, which was taking the Championship by storm at the time, captivated viewers in the “home country of football,” which does not have a culture of talking about tactics.
Cocoo meets Rooney. “If it wasn’t for my experience with Wayne…”
He suddenly became the center of attention as an up-and-coming commentator, and soon a big opportunity came his way. The following summer, 2019, Derby’s owner (at the time) Mel Morris, who noticed his speaking style on TV, offered him a coaching position in the first team.
Philippe Cocu was the manager at Derby at the time. The days under Cocu, who played more than 300 games for Prime Barcelona, were a dream come true for Rosinia, who had studied Barça extensively since childhood. Cocu, who brought his own coaching team with him, sometimes started meetings in Dutch, which made Rossinia uncomfortable, but he said that his “non-English style” of training, which placed a lot of emphasis on ball handling, proved to be a great asset.
The Cocu regime was also the beginning of the end for Derby.
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Kei Akiyoshi (Football seen from the EFL)
Born in 1996. He began disseminating information about the EFL (English 2nd, 3rd, and 4th divisions) when he was in high school, and writes to convey the wide-ranging appeal of the EFL, which he believes is “the world’s best lower league,” while being aware of his unique angle using sociological perspectives and understanding data. A fan of Birmingham since fifth grade, he moved to the area for a year during the 2023-24 season and attended all games, including cup matches, and won the club’s Supporter of the Year award for the same season. X: @Japanesethe72
