Felix Magath left an indelible mark on English football during his brief and unsuccessful stint with Fulham. He barely won a game, but is memorable for morphing into the Premier League manager most like Dr. Nick thanks to his various wild healing techniques. He told Brede Hangeland, for example, to massage an injured thigh with a block of cheese soaked in alcohol.
Speaking to 5 Live last night, Steve Sidwell unspooled the details of more Magath madness. Sidwell revealed that the night before an away game, he would gather the team together in the hotel bar and have them drink a pint, as a kind of (performance-inhibiting) bonding technique.
Naturally, Fulham did not always perform particularly well during these away games, and after one defeat, Magath called the squad into training at 8am the following morning on what was supposed to be a day off.
We'll let Sidwell tell it from here...
There were no balls coming out with us. He said, 'Right, the formation yesterday, can you get in those formations on the pitch.
'Right, you didn't want to run around yesterday, we're not going to run around today'. He blew the whistle and everyone stands still.
It was a cold day, there were a couple of lads with gloves on - they were off straight away. There were leaves blowing across the pitch... You couldn't make eye contact with anyone, you just had to stand there. I think we were there for about 40 minutes. Just standing there.
He would walk around, and stop. Walk around to the other side of the pitch, and stop.
The full interview is below.
Felix Magath at Fulham. Part 2. [Personal favourite] (HT @5LiveSport) pic.twitter.com/zGRxrdIYK1
— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1) September 22, 2017
