Thomas Dooley is used to building things from the ground-up.
As a player for Kaiserlautern, the German-born defender was thrust into a major sporting project in 1992 helping to drive American soccer ahead of World Cup ‘94.
Now, he is plotting a route for the Philippines national team from relative obscurity.
The parallels between the two projects are hard to ignore. Both the Philippines and the US prefer other sports to football – with basketball extremely popular in the South East Asian country – and both countries have had to mine the world’s talent pools to help beef up their squads.
Unlike the US however, the Philippines lacks the numbers at home and abroad.
“We need to be successful,” Dooley told Sport360°. “To get sponsors and to get a national league for people to look up to, that’s my goal. We want to grow in the next five years to a point that people can turn around and say, ‘wow, look what happened in the last five years in that country.’”
Dooley has arrived in the Philippines with a wealth of coaching experience but not a huge amount of management experience.
His lone job in the hot seat was with FC Saarbrucken in the lower leagues of German football over 10 years ago and yielded little success with the club long in the doldrums.
Since then however, he has been cutting his teeth as assistant to Jurgen Klinsmann with the US national team.
That was another project.
Dooley and Klinsmann were charged with revamping the US footballing structure after progress had stalled somewhat.
He credits his time with the German legend as an important one, leaving behind a healthy programme ahead of the World Cup in Brazil.
But why would a coach leave a major sporting nation with a World Cup just around the corner? T
he challenge is what appeals to Dooley’s competitive nature.
A national football team had barely existed until a local tycoon started the Azkals, running the team almost like a club, flying players from every walk of life that have a Filipino heritage.
In his playing days, Dooley – who won a Bundesliga title with Kaiserlautern in 1991 and the UEFA Cup with Schalke in 1997 – was similarly picked off.
As a towering centre half, Dooley helped lead the USA to a second round place at USA '94 before captaining the team four years later in France. The USA team of '94 had seven players born outside of America and the Filipino squad training in Dubai this week had 16 out of 22 hailing from other countries.
Training at the UAE Football Association Headquarters, a myriad of accents and languages were thrown around, with football the only common dialect uniting them all. A mammoth task it is to bring together a group of disparate talents under the banner of one flag, but it does come with its advantages.
“The reason I wanted to come here was that I saw they didn’t play soccer,” adds Dooley. “They played a kick-and-rush style game, I want to play differently. With these players we can play a better style, they’re all good.
“We want a team that can play nicely, that people can get behind.
“It is similar to the US, there are so many nationalities coming in so there is a similarity there. We have guys from Mexico, Germany, South Africa – all over the place. Football is different. Can you play? Then come here, we need you.
“I said to the guys I really just want players who can play, who want the ball, someone who’s confident and wants to touch the ball.
“Mistakes aren’t a big deal – unless you are making them all the time – but in general if the ball is your friend then we’re looking for you.”
Dooley has made Manila his home after replacing Michael Weiss a month ago. He admits that despite the importance of playing in Dubai, he can’t wait to get back to his life in the capital and adapting has been an easy process for the globetrotting coach.
Moving, settling and re-settling is part of the deal for anyone who works in professional football.
Walking the streets of Manila, one thing became very clear to Dooley early on. Basketball is truly king in the Philippines.
Dooley has a hell of a task in front of him to prove to the throngs of basketball fans that football is an equally good game.
While the German-American is looking to take some talent from the basketball-playing pool, there are things he can learn from the sport.
“We want an identity like the basketball team,” he explains. “I want aggressive, quick, combination type of game, they are quick players and technically pretty good – they need to be 100 per cent fit – but if we can put all of that together we can have our own identity.
“We don’t have six-foot-four centre backs, we have small quick guys who can play. That’s how I’d like to play and if that became the identity of the Philippines then that would be great.
“Basketball is No1 but really how many kids can play basketball professionally? Most of the players aren’t taller than six foot. In soccer you don’t need that, Messi is no taller than five foot six.
“The people need to realise that, that if you take this ball and play with it enough you can become a superstar and support your family and your friends.
“If we can get that in the mindset of the players and implant that dream then we are Brazil. This is something that with the mentality they have, the heart that they have, the passion that they have, I think there is a great future.”
American coaches abroad
Bob Bradley
Having got Egypt so close to qualifying for the World Cup, Bradley is in the dugout for Norweigian club Stabæk.
David Wagner
Another German-born American who prospered in the Bundesliga. Is currently coach of Borussia Dortmund’s reserves.
Dennis Lukens
Worked with amateur clubs in the US but has been in charge of Ukrainean second division club Krystal Kherson since 2011.
Gregg Berhalter
Took a high-profile job with Hammarby in Sweden in 2011 but was sacked in 2013 and is now leading Columbus Crew.
