Former Hearts and Scotland coach helps Ronaldo and co to Nations League title
When news emerged that former Scotland set-piece coach Austin MacPhee had been recruited by Portugal following an international sabbatical due to his father’s ill health, the initial reaction was to wonder whether he had signed up for the easiest job in the world – or should that be least enviable?
Showing Ronaldo how to take free kicks? You’re having a laugh, surely? Now, having spoken with the man in question in the aftermath of Portugal’s Nations League triumph nearly a fortnight ago, the first thing to point out is that MacPhee is not solely a set-piece coach, although this is now his specialist subject.
He is “assistant head coach” to Roberto Martinez, a title he shares with Ricardo Carvalho in a three-pronged frontline coaching staff. The perhaps unlikely trio have produced almost instant results while at the same time earning some ‘historia’ for Portugal for good measure. They are the first country to win the Nations League twice, something the tee shirts Ronaldo and co pulled over their heads after defeating Spain with a 100 per cent success rate in the penalty shootout two Sundays ago referenced. “Campeoes Faz Historia” read the slogan on their chests - champions make history.
Portugal players and coaches celebrate with the Nations League trophy after defeating Spain in the final. Pic: Portuguese Football Federationplaceholder image
Portugal players and coaches celebrate with the Nations League trophy after defeating Spain in the final. Pic: Portuguese Football Federation | Portuguese Football Federation
Such an achievement isn’t to be sniffed at of course. However, what really counts as true football heritage, as the kids like to say, is the status now claimed by MacPhee as the first Scottish male to win a senior international football tournament. Ever. Put that on a tee shirt, why don’t you.
It’s unlikely MacPhee will do that although he did wear his medal at breakfast with his family one morning for a laugh and then forgot to take it off as he went out to take out the bins, to funny looks from the neighbours.
“It is very heavy,” he reports. It’s good to know such details given Scotland are a million miles away from winning international tournaments that aren’t played in Japan, sponsored by a Japanese beer and involve just three countries, including the mighty Bulgaria.
Simply qualifying for a World Cup for the first time in nearly 30 years will be the aim come this Autumn. Nothing is guaranteed in terms of Portugal, who are in a group with Republic of Ireland, Armenia and Hungary, but having beaten Germany – in Germany – and then Spain to claim the Nations League title, hopes are understandably high. Not simply to qualify. They have designs on winning the damn thing.
“Since I came into the camp for the Nations League it’s been, ‘Can we practice winning the World Cup?’ says MacPhee. “Right from my first conversation with Roberto Martinez it was about can we all contribute to trying to win the World Cup? That is what he said to the players: ‘We have a week here (in Germany) to practice what it’s like’.
“The trust you have in the depth of the Portuguese squad and the fact you have an icon in the world leading the team in the summer shows the kind of special generation that we have got and the absolute belief.”
Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugal teammates give their attention to assistant coach Austin MacPhee at the tactics board. Pic: Portuguese Football Federationplaceholder image
Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugal teammates give their attention to assistant coach Austin MacPhee at the tactics board. Pic: Portuguese Football Federation | Portuguese Football Federation
From Forfar failure to Ronaldo coach
Ah yes, the 40-year-old phenomenon that is Ronaldo. A potentially tricky if talented customer, one might imagine. And yet he and MacPhee, who at 45 is nearer the veteran superstar’s age than anyone else in the Portugal camp, appears to have already struck up a good rapport. The Scot by his own admission is a “failed Forfar Athletic footballer”, although does that even matter these days anymore? Martinez’s own career was moderate.
As for Ronaldo, there’s an interesting piece of footage from the win over Spain, when the already substituted superstar is seen joining MacPhee on the edge of the technical area – recipe for disaster, perhaps? Memories stirred of the Euro 2016 final between Portugal and France, when some felt the injured Ronaldo had been disrespectful to Fernando Santos by being so animated on the sidelines, at one stage even standing in front of the head coach while issuing instructions to his teammates.
In the case of his interaction with MacPhee, however, it seemed clear he was adhering to the chain of command. There was no sense of oneupmanship. “He was just talking about the delivery, it was a free kick – whether Bruno (Fernandes) should shoot or Bruno should cross,” recalls MacPhee. “There was no right answer in this particular situation.”
MacPhee is already learning Spanish to help aid dialogue with his manager at Aston Villa, Unai Emery, so he might wait a while before downloading the teach yourself Portuguese app on Duolingo. He won’t want to confuse things. Still, he has been witness to the force of Ronaldo’s stirring dressing- room addresses, which, naturally, are delivered in Portuguese.
“You can see that when he speaks in the changing room after the game before the manager, it is very powerful,” he says. “Also how he is in terms of respect for everyone. It’s the little things. Everyone wears the same kit. Everyone sits down for dinner. No one stands up to get their dinner until everyone has sat down, including the kit man and bus driver, everyone. That has very much been driven by him and Roberto.”
Austin MacPhee imparts some advice to Cristiano Ronaldo during a Portugal training session. Pic: Portuguese Football Federationplaceholder image
Austin MacPhee imparts some advice to Cristiano Ronaldo during a Portugal training session. Pic: Portuguese Football Federation | Portuguese Football Federation
Scottish set piece influence
MacPhee’s influence can also already be traced. Eagle-eyed set-piece afficionados might have recognised an old routine in extra-time of the final against Spain, when both teams were striving for a winner while locked at 2-2. Neither side were able to find a goal but Portugal came close with a free-kick routine that Hearts and Northern Ireland have already employed to good effect when MacPhee was on the staff. For Fernandes, Vitinha and Nuno Mendes, read Sean Clare, Jake Mulraney and Steven Naismith, who combined to score the second goal for Hearts in a 2-1 win over Kilmarnock at Rugby Park in February 2019.
The trick is successfully relaying a message to players of different skill - and perhaps intelligence - levels. The concept of space is the same in the Scottish lower tiers as it is on the highest rung of international football. Providing players can recognise this, MacPhee's own limited playing credentials are not a factor.
"I go back to what I learned at St Mirren,” he says, with reference to his time coaching under Danny Lennon, who he also helped at Cowdenbeath. “Every player only asks themselves one question, 'Can this person help me?' Of course, you have to be able to engage – set pieces is an area of football that is perceived as less entertaining. It is more enjoyable to play five v fives than it is to do set pieces. But sometimes an engaging physics teacher can make physics more fun. And a bad PE teacher can manage to make PE not very enjoyable, when it should be enjoyable. That’s more or less my philosophy.”
Fast forward to many of the world's finest footballers frolicking with MacPhee at the Allianz Arena as they celebrated Portugal's latest international crown. This was an altogether happier, not to say cathartic, experience for the Scot, who nearly a year earlier was in the dugout for Scotland's 5-1 humbling by Germany (Scotland’s goal came from a set piece) in the opening game of Euro 2024, when Ryan Porteous was sent off just before half-time.
It helps when you keep eleven players on the field, as Portugal did. It also helps when four members of their squad had won the Champions League with Paris-Saint Germain the week before, which highlights the company MacPhee is now keeping.
Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez. Cr: SNS Group.placeholder image
Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez. Cr: SNS Group. | SNS Group
How Martinez found his ‘perfect fit’
While the Fifer has now earned the right to be considered among the best in the world at what he does, circumstances do often play a part. Thomas Tuchel’s appointment as England manager started a chain reaction that saw MacPhee approached by Martinez. Anthony Barry, who worked with Martinez at both Belgium and Portugal, was poached by Tuchel, with their relationship dating to Chelsea days. Martinez was now a coach short.
It didn’t seem impossible that Martinez and MacPhee might already know each other – the Portugal manager enjoyed a brief spell at Motherwell, after all, and is married to a Scot, Beth. It turns out they didn’t, which seems novel in a world where positions are often offered on the basis of pre-existing relationships.
Of course, Martinez was aware of MacPhee, who has overseen set pieces at Villa for four years, but his name emerged following “an open search”, which is how the Portugal manager himself described it to The Scotsman. “We highlighted from a very technical point which areas we wanted the new staff member to focus on,” he explained via text message as he flew to the United States, where he is a member of Fifa’s technical study group at the Club World Cup.
“We used AI to find the best performing team in Europe in those technical areas - and the answer was Aston Villa,” he added. The league tables spell this out. Villa currently have the best record in the Premier League for defending corners: they concede just one every 97 on average when the world average is one every 29. They lead the way in Europe’s top five leagues in the past two seasons for goals scored from set-pieces, with 45.
Martinez explained that they then started to find out more about MacPhee’s career and “his human quality”. Very quickly, he added, “he became our perfect fit”. Some further investigation uncovered the fact that the only goal Portugal had conceded from a set play in their Nations League campaign last year had come against Scotland, when MacPhee was still involved. “It made sense very quickly,” writes Martinez. He was appointed in February, before a 5-3 aggregate win over Denmark in the Nations League semi-final.
Aston Villa set-piece specialist Austin MacPhee joined Roberto Martinez’s backroom team with Portugal in February. (Photo by Nick Potts/PA Wire)placeholder image
Aston Villa set-piece specialist Austin MacPhee joined Roberto Martinez’s backroom team with Portugal in February. (Photo by Nick Potts/PA Wire)
Written in the stars
Paramount above all this in the process was an improvement in MacPhee’s father’s health, which meant taking on further responsibilities became possible. Concerns regarding his dad’s cancer diagnosis had led to him stepping away from Scotland in September. “He has a letter saying he should be dead in November,” says MacPhee. “He is now very much alive, swimming up and down the pool in the Fairmont (outside St Andrews) and playing golf and going to the pub and following Dunfermline – telling me about the poker champion who has bought Dunfermline.” Understandably, Villa were very keen for MacPhee to broaden his horizons and make some new, talented connections in the process. As he puts it, “you have a relationship with some of the best players in the world who you might want one day to sign”. There could be no downsides.
It also seemed written in the stars. When he was offered the post, MacPhee’s son Dino, who was once on the books at both Hibs and Hearts, had just accepted a place at the University of Lisbon, where he will start studying business and entrepreneurship in the coming academic year.
MacPhee couldn’t say yes to Martinez quickly enough. It helped knowing that the majority of the Portuguese squad, including Ronaldo while in his second spell at Manchester United, had already felt the impact of Villa’s set-piece proficiency, as have many of Portugal's England-based players.
It’s hard not to be slightly wowed by MacPhee’s trajectory. Eleven years ago he had just joined up with Northern Ireland, having met Michael O’Neill at an Aberdeen game. He wasn't yet known as a set-piece coach per se but when 11 of the 16 goals Northern Ireland scored en route to qualifying for Euro 2016 were from set-pieces, it was clear something was changing in football.
Now those such as Bernardo Silva are eager to reply to messages about MacPhee’s influence. On the day he was named among the substitutes as Manchester City opened their Club World Cup campaign with a 2-0 win over Moroccan side Wydad AC, Silva responded by text to a request for some information on how the players have enjoyed working with MacPhee. “As you know, set pieces play a major part in football nowadays,” he replied before taking his place on the bench. “We are creating a lot of problems for our rivals since he joined, so honestly it has been a pleasure for all of us”.
He added that the “message and ideas are very clear - simple but at the same time very effective”. He referenced a photo that circulated on social media showing Silva pulling pints next to MacPhee following the Nations League victory. “The one thing to say,” he added with a laughing emoji, “is that he’s not very good at pulling pints – I am better!”
Former Scotland set piece coach Austin MacPhee with captain Andy Robertson during the match against Switzerland at Euro 2024. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)placeholder image
Former Scotland set piece coach Austin MacPhee with captain Andy Robertson during the match against Switzerland at Euro 2024. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group) | SNS Group / SFA
Switching from Scotland
MacPhee, who played football in Romania, Japan and the United States, is not finding it strange switching from Scotland, where his heart clearly lies as a former Tartan Army member who travelled to support the team at France 98 in a Renault 5. “I have been seven years with Northern Ireland as well,” he says. “I think you become connected with a group of people with a common identity and a common goal. Of course, it is different. I am not Portuguese. But I think you can care more but you don’t necessarily try any harder is the best way I can describe it.
"I tried as hard as I could for Northern Ireland, I tried my best. I tried to do the same with Scotland. In the big moments there is slightly more euphoria and in the bad times there is slightly more hurt, probably, because you are thinking of all your family and friends from Scotland, there is an extra thing. It’s slightly different.
“One of my dreams as a wee boy was to go to a World Cup,” he continues. “I have never done that. I’ve experienced the Champions League, the Conference League, the Euros. This season we are playing in the Europa League. I’ve done the Nations League, worked abroad. The World Cup is the missing experience, the one I’ve not had.”
His ardent wish, of course, is for Scotland and Portugal to be in North America together next summer. While his sincerity cannot be doubted, it isn’t unpatriotic to note that MacPhee is now in the right team to target more than simply reaching a World Cup.