Hot-Seat Watch for World Football Players, Coaches After Week March 27-31

Karl Matchett@@karlmatchettX.com LogoFeatured ColumnistApril 1, 2015

Hot-Seat Watch for World Football Players, Coaches After Week March 27-31

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    Yves Logghe/Associated Press

    It's international week in the world of football, and to recognise that, our focus on the hot seat this time around is going to be on the managers and people in the game who have taken part or hit the headlines over the last few days.

    We've taken a look at the matches that have been played, friendlies and competitive action alike, and picked out the coaches who have struggled to pick up victories when it mattered most or shown a general improvement with their teams.

    Here are our hot-seat selections for the past few days, covering Thursday of last week to this Tuesday.

Montenegro Fans and Players

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    Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

    We start off on an extremely negative note; the fans at the Montenegro vs. Russia game who threw a flare at Russia goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev within a minute of the start of the match.

    There was more than a half-hour delay thereafter as Akinfeev was carted off to hospital, but despite the referee restarting the match, there was eventually an abandonment after another stoppage in the second half.

    The second incident involved coaches and players, per BBC Sport, and UEFA were awaiting reports of the match before eventually issuing both nations' Football Associations with charges.

    Following big problems in the Albania-Serbia clash earlier in the qualifiers, there was hope for no more crowd trouble, but that hasn't been the case.

Jorge Sampaoli

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    Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

    Chile boss Jorge Sampaoli doubtless isn't under any pressure in his job, but this was a tough weekend where he will hope to have taken some lessons for his team ahead of this summer's Copa America.

    A friendly defeat to Iran, 2-0, was unexpected and disappointing for Chile, who impressed at the World Cup finals again last year with their offensive football, tremendous work rate and exciting tactics. Iran would have been the match out of their two this week they expected to cruise through, but it didn't happen that way.

    Following that, despite a decent performance they lost 1-0 to Brazil, going down to Roberto Firmino's strike in the second half. They have no more games ahead of the Copa.

Ramon Diaz

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    Jorge Saenz/Associated Press

    Like Sampaoli, Ramon Diaz isn't in danger of losing his job—he only took over as Paraguay head coach in December.

    He has, however, very quickly been able to see just how much work there is to do. Paraguay finished bottom of the CONMEBOL qualifying table for the 2014 World Cup, and his first games have seen them manage a dismal 0-0 draw against Costa Rica before losing 1-0 to Mexico.

    Those scorelines suggest the immediate problem: a lack of creating chances on goal, save for set pieces. Team cohesion was an issue in the latter match, with overly aggressive tactics not making up for a lack of ability on the ball.

    With just three wins in their last 18 games, friendlies and competitive, Paraguay need to turn a huge corner to impact at the Copa America this summer. Their opening game there is against Argentina.

Per-Mathias Hogmo

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    Ian Walton/Getty Images

    Norway and coach Per-Mathias Hogmo only had one match this time around, a fixture at group leaders Croatia.

    Tough, sure, but with just one point between the two sides, Norway had hoped to give their opponents a good run for their money...but it didn't happen at all as they crashed to a 5-1 defeat. Following on the back of a narrow 1-0 win over minnows Azerbaijan and a 1-0 defeat to Estonia, points are belying the poor overall form of Norway at present.

    They remain third in their group for Euro 2016 qualification and will net a playoff spot if they finish there, but they need to be better to hold off Bulgaria for the place.

Antonio Conte

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    Claudio Villa/Getty Images

    Italy coach Antonio Conte would have been expected to cruise through the qualification campaign for Euro 2016, with nobody presenting more powerful opposition than Croatia, but they have only won three of their five games and scored eight goals in the process.

    This time around, they were lucky to scrape a draw, needing an 84th-minute equaliser from Eder to salvage a point in Bulgaria and remain in second place, losing ground on group leaders Croatia.

    It won't matter a huge deal if they finish second instead of first. It's still an automatic qualification berth, but the draw there and then at home to England in their subsequent friendly—despite being the better team—were not results Conte would have hoped for.

    "(W)e're still working to help this squad grow," Conte said after the England draw, per Sky Sports. "There are a lot of young players here but thankfully their experiences in their respective leagues has shone through."

    He added: "We still need to continue to work hard in order to allow the players to develop and be ready at international level. We need them to gain confidence for them to get even better."

Radovan Curcic

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    Sergio Camacho/Getty Images

    Serbia boss Radovan Curcic only had one fixture to prepare his team for during this international break, but it was a vitally important one in Portugal.

    Following the deduction of three points for the incident against Albania, Serbia are already teetering on the brink of not qualifying for the Euros after only tallying a single point from five games now. They've already lost 2-1 in Portugal.

    A very poor performance in an offensive sense meant they were never really likely to take anything from the game, and even after equalising, Serbia gifted a second goal to the Iberians within minutes. Six points off third place now, they have a lot of work to do to set things right in the last four games.

Fabio Capello

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    Ivan Sekretarev/Associated Press

    Russia's great Fabio Capello experiment is going very badly. A poor World Cup showing has given way to an equally unimpressive Euro 2016 qualification campaign, where Capello has led his team to just one win in four games.

    Of course, the most recent one was against Montenegro, which was abandoned at 0-0 during the second half, per BBC Sport. Roman Shirokov had missed a penalty for Russia, and they looked far from sure to break the deadlock, though it remains to be seen how and if the points are distributed.

    Russia have demanded they be awarded the points for the game...and they need them, currently sat in third with only five points so far.

    They followed that game up with a home friendly against lowly Kazakhstan...and drew that 0-0, too.

Vicente Del Bosque

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    Peter Dejong/Associated Press

    Spain's Euro 2016 qualification campaign has been fairly decent since the defeat to Slovakia, but they have been far from convincing as they try to rebuild.

    Like Sampaoli, he's certainly not under any pressure with his job, but he does need to find a far more consistent and impressive formula for his team after they laboured somewhat to a 1-0 win over Ukraine, then lost 2-0—and a convincing, deserved 2-0—to the Netherlands in a friendly.

    Del Bosque has mixed his teams and systems of late, but some fringe players clearly haven't looked quite up to scratch and others are far from their best. The defeat to the Netherlands was Spain's sixth in their last 11, bookended by this and the World Cup loss to the same opposition—not good enough for the standards now expected of Spain.

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