A familiar figure will step out of the tunnel at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday lunchtime and, almost certainly, meet a wall of warm applause. For a moment it may seem as if the clock has been rewound to the most successful chapter in Middlesbrough’s history but Steve McClaren will then take his seat in the away dugout.
If a lot has happened to Derby County’s manager in the eight years since he swapped Middlesbrough for England, the days when Boro fans sang “We’re just a small town in Europe” as they headed for the 2006 Uefa Cup final are long gone. While McClaren’s time in charge of the national team is probably best forgotten, he subsequently, and against all odds, led Twente to the Dutch title for the first time.
Next came unwise involvements with clubs undermined by toxic off-field politics, prompting unsuccessful stints at Wolfsburg and Nottingham Forest. Boro, too, experienced disappointment as Gareth Southgate, Gordon Strachan and Tony Mowbray variously struggled and, almost imperceptibly, they slipped into the Championship and out of the spotlight.
In a slice of uncanny symmetry things began looking up for both parties last autumn as McClaren made an evocative return to Derby, the club he had once graced as a sweet-passing, if rather one-paced, midfielder and later an innovative assistant manager.
Boro hired another mud-on-boots tracksuit coach in Aitor Karanka, whose previous job had been assisting José Mourinho at Real Madrid. Like McClaren in the east Midlands the Spaniard is proving a very good fit on Teesside and his team sit only two points and three places beneath table-topping Derby.
With the pair in charge of arguably the division’s two most attractive teams and strongest title contenders, Saturday lunchtime’s tactical duel promises to be compelling. “It’s not going to define our season or win or lose us promotion but we’re going to learn a lot more about our team,” says McClaren whose side, beaten play-off finalists last season, are at home to Chelsea in a Capital One Cup quarter-final on Tuesday. “It’s a real test.”
While Mourinho can expect a detailed debrief from Karanka, still a close friend, the Boro manager’s priority is outwitting his most celebrated predecessor.
Hindsight suggests the days when Boro won the League Cup, reached that Uefa Cup final and signed players of the calibre of Gaizka Mendieta were taken almost for granted on Teesside. At the time McClaren – greeted enthusiastically before Derby lost 1-0 at the Riverside in April – was not universally popular among fans and tended to polarise opinion, his apparent fixation with creating a positive media image sometimes obscuring the engaging, surprisingly down-to-earth, character within.
Almost everyone agrees Karanka is by far the best thing to have happened to the club since 2006, even if one recent decision jarred. It will be strange not to see Craig Hignett in the home dugout. A former Boro player, Hignett served as a conduit between manager and dressing room, his ready Scouse wit easing tensions, and had been regarded as a key figure until last week’s sudden, surprise announcement that he had departed.
The reasons behind the split remain unknown but, for the moment at least, fears that Hignett’s exit could prove detrimental were allayed as Boro won 5-1 at Millwall last Saturday. Partly thanks to clever use of the loan market and partly because of his excellent coaching honing homegrown talent, Karanka – who will watch from the stands on Saturday while serving a one-match touchline ban for improper conduct, namely pushing a fourth official – has assembled a strong squad.
Adam Reach, an academy graduate, ranks among its leading lights. “The Millwall display had been in the pipeline,” says the increasingly admired winger. “We clicked. It was an important win which sends out a clear message that we’re ready to get back into the Premier League.”
His manager is slightly more cautious. “Derby are the best team in the league so it’s going to be very difficult,” Karanka says. “They’re coached by Steve McClaren every day and every single day they’re improving – but when we play in the way we know we can we can beat anyone.”
