Newcastle United has appointed PSV academy coach Jack Brazil as the club’s new under-16s manager.
Brazil will begin work at Newcastle next month after spending nearly six years working with young players throughout the continent. The Englishman has previously worked as an assistant coach for PSV’s under-17s and 18s, as well as the elite head coach for Valerenga’s under-14s and under-12s.
The well-traveled 30-year-old, who has also coached in the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, and Mongolia, will begin his new post at Newcastle on July 1, following Ian Bogie’s resignation earlier this year.
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“Very excited and grateful for the opportunity to work at such a well-supported, forward-thinking club in a football crazy city,” he said to LinkedIn.
Brazil joins the club at a time when Little Benton has achieved significant progress under academy director Steve Harper. The school has more staff than ever before; there is a gradual shared identity in the way teams play; the scouting setup has been altered; and those working in the building have access to resources that simply ‘did not exist’ during Ashley’s tenure.
The club now has an increasing pull at the youth team level and, more importantly, can point to a genuine pathway, as they did in convincing midfielder Alfie Harrison to leave Manchester City in January, after youngsters such as Lewis Miley and Elliot Anderson became first-team regulars under Eddie Howe. Despite Newcastle’s owners’ enormous fortune, there remains a significant gap to be bridged.
The reality is that other category one academies, such as Manchester City, Chelsea, and Liverpool, have larger finances and have effectively gotten a head start, so Newcastle must be especially smart. Brazil, however, benefited from a similar dynamic in the Netherlands, where PSV’s young teams fought with Ajax, who had more resources.
“As an education, I believe you can look at the clubs in the Netherlands and say, ‘It would be fantastic to work for Ajax,’ and so on,” he previously told the mentality for sport podcast. I disagree.
“We’re the underdogs a little bit, and being the one constantly battling to establish themselves and achieve is a lot of fun. We constantly perceive ourselves as a little hard done by, and we need to figure out how we’re going to be successful and outperform the individuals that receive more praise than us in the country.
“That’s a great task. I appreciate being a part of that, playing an important role in that challenge, and working with it every day.”
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