The King of Iberia

For a long time, thanks to his hugely successful time at Levante, where he achieved one relegation, two mid table finishes, and almost made the play offs, Tom Parfitt has been widely considered the best manager in Spain. 

Mid way through this season however, he cut his ties with the Spanish side and moved to Benfica. During his half season in charge, he managed to almost make the play offs, and as a direct result of this success, is now considered not just the best manager in Spain, but also the best manager on the whole of the Iberian peninsula. The man himself though was very modest when asked about it all. Taking a leaf out of the Brian Clough book of self deprecation, Parfitt stated that he probably isn’t the best manager in Spain & Portugal, but he’s certainly in the top one.  

Not only did he almost make the play offs with Benfica, his former side Levante achieved promotion. Parfitt takes the credit for this with the foundations he laid at the club over the previous four seasons. The great man himself was this morning basking in the glory of his achievements. Asked to sum up his season, the modest manager said this. 

“Almost making the div 2 playoffs, youth shield quarter final run, and winning the div 5 playoffs. If Carlsberg did football managers"

When asked to give a little more, Parfitt said

"Looking at the second half of the season, and what's happened here at Benfica, I think we've managed to bring in a little more experience without taking away from the quality of the side. Bringing in Timo Werner was also a massive coup, I was delighted with that. 

As for next season, the aim really has to be promotion. Obviously we want automatics, but the play offs would be equally acceptable. It will be a hard division, although having Beddows in there gives everybody 6 points next season.  

Do I see him as a rival in the same vein as I did PMW during the division 5 days? Not really. To say that he's a rival would imply that I think he's of a similar standard. Relegated twice with Milan would say otherwise.  

I think if we can finish above the other Milan side, we wont be too far away. I'd expect Dortmund to be in the mix too, but hopefully we'll have enough about is to be right in the mix. 

Whether there will be many more changes to the squad or not is yet to be seen. We have a deal agreed with West Brom for a couple of youth lads, but in terms of first team changes, nothing is planned. We've spoken to a few managers about a few players, but nothing is agreed anywhere at the moment.   

The most important thing though is to keep a hold of Mbappe. He's a tremendous asset, and wont be going anywhere at the moment. 

While I've been here, probably the stand out result was beating Atletico Madrid 3 – 2, and the most disappointing would be losing to Leverkusen on the penultimate day. That was where we lost the play off spot, although Sunderland having one chalked off  against Genoa on the final day also went against us. Funny that Franks side benefitted from that decision, but there we are."