Tribal Football

Antti Niemi exclusive: Gomez tribute - from cleaning Brighton toilets to leading Volos in Super League

Antti Niemi exclusive: Gomez is the most passionate man I have ever met!
Antti Niemi exclusive: Gomez is the most passionate man I have ever met!Action Plus
Antti Niemi has revealed how Joaquin Gomez offered him a role at Greek club Volos in preseason and why his new boss is the most passionate man he has ever met in the footballing world.

Gomez has climbed the management ladder after being an assistant at clubs such as Brighton & Hove Albion, Stoke City, Cartagena and the Finland U21s before entering management with HJK, SJK and returning to be an assistant at Al-Quadsiah last year. 

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It was no easy ride for the Spaniard, who never played professionally and began his coaching career in school football in Madrid. As Niemi reveals, Gomez packed his bags - at 23 - for England with the ambition of breaking into the professional game.

The Finn spoke about how he met Gomez a decade ago and immediately was struck by how commited he was to the game and coaching. 

“When I was at Brighton in 2014 when Sami Hyypiä was the manager, I was the goalkeeper coach and I got to know Joaquin Gomez who was the academy coach but he got promoted to be the assistant coach in the first team," Niemi told Tribalfootball.com. 

“I have seen a lot of passionate people in my lifetime in football but this guy is something else he has dedicated his life to football. 

“He moved from Spain (to England) without knowing any English, he just wanted to work in English football. He was working as a waiter, he was cleaning the toilets at Brighton, he was coaching kids and eventually somebody saw that this guy is really passionate and he can coach so he got in the first team.

“Since then, he has been with Finland, in Saudi Arabia, he was at Stoke and Derby. I got to know him, he was in Saudi Arabia last year and he got offered the job here at Volos which is a Greek Super League club." 

Niemi went on to speak about his role at Volos and how he is excited to start  his new adventure in a league dominated by the 4 top clubs. Volos have won just one of their four opening games so far, but have already faced Olympiacos as well as AEK in a tough start to the season.

“In Greece we have AEK, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and PAOK who are the four big ones then there is a big gap where you find the smaller clubs like Volos. 99% of Greek people support one of those Greek giants," continued Niemi. 

”I am still learning, still studying the country and the league but the overall standard is high. Each club has skilful players, great athletes who are technically very good. There is a mixture of nationalities even we as a smaller club have people from South America, Hungary, Poland, Sweden so it is a mixture of different styles and personalities.” 

On joining Gomez, Niemi joked about how their personalities complement eachother.

“He called me in the summer, he said I had a few days to decide. He is very temperamental; he is very passionate and I am the boring, steady guy who always tells him to calm down! You need that sort of personality; you don’t need a similar sort of personality as you need to balance each other out 

“He offered me the job to be the assistant manager which is different as I have always been a goalkeeping coach and I still am with the Finnish national team but I took it as a challenge, as an adventure it is going to be a learning curve for me and I am really enjoying it so far.” 

Niemi and Volos next meet PAOK on Saturday.

 

 

Antti Niemi was speaking to Tribalfootball.com courtesy of Freebets.com.