The thin white line. Divides the world and thought: from here coaches, from there players. It is a border that separates the responsibility from the talent, the penalty (tactical) from the freedom of the gesture. But there are those who have chosen to live on it, hovering, keeping one foot on each side. Balance. Player-Manager, they call them. Players and coaches together. Hybrid figures, cloaked in a singular alchemy. They guide their companions as they play, look at their gaze and then decide. For himself and for others. Ruud Gullit tried in 1996. A year earlier he had arrived at Chelsea after a career built in the good living room (at the time he was the most sumptuous) in Serie A. It was certainly not the first player -man of history. Others before him had had good legs and very wide shoulders. But Ruud, with his irony and the ability to reflect, would have caught the point: “Being a football coach is not fun at all. You have to endure all the dryings. It is not surprising that many become gray or have heart attacks”. Adam Lallana held the role of deputy coach-player at Brighton for a few weeks. Ryan Giggs led Manchester United in 2014 from inside the field, ferrying the team in the difficult post-Ferguson. A complex task. Wayne Rooney took the County derby in full crisis. But the list is long. Attilio Lombardo tried to save the Crystal Palace in 1998, without succeeding. Marco Materazzi made herself player-coach of Chennaiyin in India, while Edgar Davids joined glasses and tactical blackboard at Barnet (alongside Mark Robson), fifth English series. Nicolas Anelka lived a parenthesis at Shanghai Shenhua, in China, while Keisuke Honda joined the bench and field in a real impossible mission: Player at the Melbourne Victory, coach of Cambodia and president of an Austrian club Horn.
