Bob Houghton

Early career

During his brief playing career, Houghton was a midfielder for Fulham (1966–69) and Brighton & Hove Albion (1969–70). Houghton was one of the youngest coaches ever to manage in English senior football, being appointed player-manager of Hastings United in the Southern League at only 23. During that period, he was a star pupil of coaching guru Allen Wade, who was the technical director of the Football Association between 1963 and 83. In the early 1970s Houghton also managed Maidstone United and worked as an assistant to Bobby Robson at Ipswich Town.

Malmö FF

He became the manager of Swedish top flight side Malmö FF in 1974. Houghton guided them to success domestically and internationally, reaching the 1979 European Cup final, losing 1–0 against Nottingham Forest. The Swedish team was all based on local players who came from within 60 km from Malmö. It was the first and so far only time a Swedish team has reached the European Cup final. He also won the Swedish championship and Svenska Cupen several times and was runner-up in the Intercontinental Cup in 1979 as Nottingham Forest declined to participate, losing against Olimpia from Paraguay.

Revolution in Sweden

Houghton's early coaching career was closely linked to that of his friend Roy Hodgson. They worked together at Maidstone, Stranraer and Bristol City. They also managed different teams in Swedish football at the same time. Houghton moved to Sweden with Malmö in 1974 and two years…

In a 2012 article for The Guardian, Jonathan Wilson said that Houghton, like his compatriot Roy Hodgson, employed a zonal defence while coaching in the Allsvenskan, and that his teams pressed hard and maintained a high back-line, making use of the offside trap. They also utilised counter-attacks that were initiated with long passes played in behind the opposing defensive line. Swedish academic Tomas Peterson believed that the managers "threaded together a number of principles, which could be used in a series of combinations and compositions, and moulded them into an organic totality — an indivisible project about how to play football. Every moment of the match was theorised, and placed as an object-lesson for training-teaching, and was looked at in a totality." In an article with The Blizzard, Hodgson said that he and Houghton were attempting to introduce a different style of defending in Swedish football, rather than elements of English football, such as the long-ball game, stating: "Instead of playing with a team that was very spread out from one end of the field to the other, with a libero who stays in his penalty area and a centre-forward who never tracks back, we set up a system of zonal defence, a back four, people pushing up and, of course, getting the ball forward into the final area much more quickly." He also believed that Sven-Göran Eriksson's tactical innovations in the Swedish game were inspired by their own work.

Manager

Malmö FF

Allsvenskan: 1974, 1975, 1977 Svenska Cupen: 1973–74, 1974–75, 1977–78, 1979–80 European Cup: runner-up: 1978–79 India

AFC Challenge Cup: 2008 SAFF Championship runner-up: 2008 Nehru Cup: 2007, 2009 Al-Ittihad

Saudi Federation Cup: 1987