Jill Scott discusses coaching passion and observing Guardiola’s and Borrell’s work at Man City
JILL SCOTT has opened up on her passion for coaching and hailed Pep Guardiola’s emotional intelligence.
The retired City and Lionesses ace is set to coach girls and boys coming up through the ranks at Manchester City.
Scott, 36, revealed the experience of being coached at City opened up a whole new world of football to her
The retired midfield ace was sharing her thoughts in an interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap Show with Sky Bet.
And the former Citizens star admits she gets “a real buzz” from helping youngsters.
Scott, who helped the Lionesses win the 2022 Women’s Euros last July, told Neville: “Coaching is a big passion of mine – I love coaching.
“I even did a grassroots session the other day and I had little six-year-olds checking their shoulder before receiving the ball.
“I just get a real buzz out of helping people.
“I’m going to be doing a bit of coaching at Manchester City, it got blew up a bit as if I’m going to be Pep Guardiola’s assistant.
“That’s the media world that we’re living in. It’s going to be coaching the girls and boys academy players.
“In terms of the detail that Man City provide, it’s so interesting for me.
“It opened this whole new world of football and that was at the age of 26.
“I’m excited about that, I’m obsessed with passing drills.
“Sometimes I’ll sit around on a Friday night watching old Bayern Munich passing drills on YouTube, looking at bits of detail.
“I know that’s my passion but I’m not ready yet to go into a full schedule of football.
“I’ve watched some of Pep Guardiola’s sessions, I took my nephews along to watch a session.
“I’ll be observing the academy training in the first few weeks and seeing how they work but it’s hard to learn from Pep because he’s always a genius in his own head.
“Sometimes you can watch a coach who is very structured, but he’s very emotionally intelligent and you’ll see his session go one way and then he’ll change it.
“There are some coaches you can follow and some who are just a genius in their own mind.
“There’s a lot of coaches with good detail at the academy – the assistant of Pep, Rodolfo (Borrell) we had him coach us at the women’s team – he used to work at Barcelona.
“I hung onto every word he said on receiving the ball in the pockets.
“I’m excited, I’m going to go in there and ask as many questions as I can because I have a lot to learn.
“I’m nowhere near a finished article of a coach but I know I’ll work hard to get better.”
Scott, who retired last August, ended her playing career as the second-highest capped Lioness after Fara Williams.
The versatile former midfielder notched up 161 senior appearances for the Lionesses.
She also won nine major trophies during her 18-year club career.
These include a Women’s Super League title, four FA Cups and three league cups during spells at City and Everton.
Since retirement Scott has gone on to be crowned winner of ITV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here as well as pundit appearances on Sky Sports and ITV Sport.
In February she opened a new floodlit 3G football pitch at Perth Green Community Centre in Jarrow, five miles from her hometown in Sunderland.
The pitch, funded via a £500,000 Football Foundation grant, is supporting the development of football for women and girls as well as individuals living with disabilities.
Local teams who will use the space include Boldon CA Girls FC, the club where Scott began her career as a youth player.
Scott’s former coach Paul Smith who is the chairman of Boldon CA Girls FC said: “It’s been a good journey for Jill but it’s also been a good journey for myself and girls football in general in the area.
“I think if we had not done what we’ve done, I don’t think it (girls’ football) would be as big as it is now in the area.”
Scott revealed she could not imagine football being a part of her life and says the joy of playing the game overrode the toughest moments she experienced on the pitch.
She added: “It was tough being a girl and wanting to play football. I got bullied quite a lot.
“I remember my first day at senior school – this lad was shouting at me, ‘you must be a boy because you play football’.
“I went to chase after him and his friend tripped me up and I smashed my elbow into three pieces.
“When I look back, those moments were really tough.
“I found it really hard to open up and say how I was feeling, because especially in those early moments in my career, we were taught, ‘don’t ever show that you’re disappointed’, ‘be strong’ and all that.
“As I’ve got older, I’ve realised that the strongest people were the ones that showed emotion and said, ‘look I’m getting bullied, I’m struggling.’
“It was tough, but then with those moments where I picked up my football boots, training and playing football, I was just so happy.
“That feeling overrode those other things.”