Bob Houghton

Robert Douglas Houghton (born 30 October 1947) is an English football manager and former player. His career has spanned over 30 years and 10 countries. He is most famous for taking Swedish club Malmö FF to the 1979 European Cup final, where they lost to Nottingham Forest.

During his brief playing career, Houghton was a midfielder for Fulham (1966–69) and Brighton & Hove Albion (1969–70). Houghton was one of the youngest coaches ever to manage in English senior football, being appointed player-manager of Hastings United in the Southern League at only 23. During that period, he was a star pupil of coaching guru Allen Wade, who was the technical director of the Football Association between 1963 and 83. In the early 1970s Houghton also managed Maidstone United and worked as an assistant to Bobby Robson at Ipswich Town.

He became the manager of Swedish top flight side Malmö FF in 1974. Houghton guided them to success domestically and internationally, reaching the 1979 European Cup final, losing 1–0 against Nottingham Forest. The team was all based on local players who came from within 60 km from Malmö. It was the first and so far only time a Swedish team has reached the European Cup final.

He also won the Swedish championship and Svenska Cupen several times and was runner-up in the Intercontinental Cup in 1979 as Nottingham Forest declined to participate, losing against Olimpia from Paraguay.

Houghton's early coaching career was closely linked to that of his friend Roy Hodgson. They worked together at Maidstone, Stranraer and Bristol City. They also managed different teams in Swedish football at the same time.

Houghton moved to Sweden with Malmö in 1974 and two years later installed Hodgson at Halmstad. The pair are credited with transforming football in Sweden and bringing in zonal marking for the first time to Swedish football. Swedish teams at the time used a sweeper with 3 or 5 in defence favouring man-marking. The two were known in Sweden as English Roy and English Bob.

Besides zonal marking, the defence pressed hard and maintained a high offside line. Their teams counter-attacked with long passes played in behind the opposition defence. Instead of playing with a team that was very spread out from one end of the field to the other, with a libero who stayed in his penalty area and a centre-forward who never tracked back, they set up a system of zonal defence, a back four, people pushing up and getting the ball forward into the final area much more quickly.

After a short spell in Greece with Ethnikos Piraeus, Houghton returned to his homeland in 1980 to manage Bristol City. His spell at Ashton Gate Stadium was unsuccessful as the financially stricken club were relegated and Houghton resigned after a defeat to Wimbledon. Houghton's next job was with North American Soccer League side Toronto Blizzard between 1982 and 1984. He then managed in Saudi Arabia with Al-Ittihad before returning to Sweden at Örgryte IS and Malmö FF again. After another spell with Al-Ittihad in 1993, he joined Swiss side FC Zürich in April 1994 and remained in charge for just over a year before leaving in March 1995. In 1996, he became the first ever coach of Major League Soccer side Colorado Rapids before being sacked after just one season.