Rangers’ assistant manager Michael Beale is featured in an interview with ESPN Brasil today.
The coach had worked at São Paulo in 2017, and given how unusual is to have a former Liverpool employee at a Brazilian club, he’s still remembered in the country, despite the short time he spent there.
Now besides asking a few questions about his months in South America, ESPN Brasil also wanted to know how things have been going for him at Rangers, and he had a lot to say about his current spell at Ibrox.
“This season has been a great success so far: we’ve played 43 games in League, Scottish Cup and Europa League, we’ve lost just one game and we’re close to winning the league. This is a highly important tournament for the club and will be the 55th title in the league,” Beale told ESPN Brasil.
“I love the challenge of trying to make this club the biggest in Scotland again and also regaining the club as a team of European competitions. So, this season has been very exciting, as we’re close to completing this journey. For the next season, we’ll try to push even harder, but Rangers have now resumed their former status as Scotland’s biggest.”
Regarding Steven Gerrard, Beale talks about how glad he is to be working with the former Liverpool captain.
“It’s a great pleasure to work with Steven. We met during the time at Liverpool. He’s a very good coach and gives his commission a lot of responsibility. He’s shown a lot of confidence and faith in me as a coach, and I’m enjoying this moment working as his assistant.”
Michael Beale was also quizzed about his future, with ESPN asking him if he’d fancy going back to work in Brazil one day. He claims he can’t rule it out.
“It’d be great to return to Brazil again in the future, my children still talk about our home in São Paulo and the things we did as a family. We loved our time in Brazil. In the future, I’ll visit Rogério and Charles when the pandemic is over and, who knows, I may work with these two guys again in Brazil one day. I still practice my Portuguese language skills by writing my training plans on it – this is something I love to do.
“Football in South America is very different from the United Kingdom and more similar to the style of Portugal and Spain. I really loved football and working with young players from South America, it was a special moment in my life.”
Beale left his job as Liverpool’s U-23 coach in December 2016, and joined São Paulo as Rogério Ceni’s assistant manager in January 2017. He stayed in Brazil for six months.
Following his return to the Reds as Head of Academy Coaching on June 2017, he stayed there for a year, until being called to join Steven Gerrard at Rangers in June 2018.
