Michael Beale (born 4 September 1980) is an English football coach who is currently manager of Championship side Queens Park Rangers.

Beale was assistant manager to Steven Gerrard at Rangers and Aston Villa. He has also coached at Chelsea, Liverpool and São Paulo.

Career

Playing career and introductions into coaching

Beale's playing career started at Charlton Athletic, after being released by Charlton, he had short trials at FC Twente in the Netherlands, and at clubs in the United States, before calling an end to his playing days at the age of 21.[1]

Beale's next step in football was to invest some of the money he had made as a youth player into setting up a futsal club for children in his hometown of Bromley, South London.[2] It was while training children here, that he caught the attention of Chelsea Academy boss Neil Bath, who in 2002, offered him a role as a part-time youth coach at their Cobham Training Centre.[3] As a coach of Chelsea's Under-7s and Under-9s squads, he worked with future Premier League footballers Tammy Abraham and Dominic Solanke.[1]

After admitting to becoming somewhat frustrated with the lack of progression of young players into Chelsea's first team since the takeover of Roman Abramovich in 2003,[1] Beale took an offer to work at the Liverpool Academy, beginning as the coach of the Under-16s team, before progressing to become coach of the Under-23s. It was in this role that Beale first worked alongside Steven Gerrard, who was coaching the Liverpool Under-18s at the time.[4]

Assistant Manager roles

In January 2017, Beale, a long-time fan of South American football, took the opportunity to move to Brazilian club São Paulo, learning Portuguese to act as assistant to Rogério Ceni.[5] However, six months later, Ceni and his backroom team were sacked after a string of poor results.[6]

After a short time back working with Liverpool's youth set-up, Beale was contacted by Steven Gerrard to act as his assistant manager at Rangers. In three years in Scotland under Gerrard, Beale and Gary McAllister, Rangers won their first Scottish Premiership preventing city rivals Celtic from winning ten in a row.[7]

In November 2021, Gerrard was offered the role of manager at Aston Villa, following the sacking of Dean Smith. Beale and McAllister followed him to the Premier League club.[8]

Queens Park Rangers

On 1 June 2022, Beale was appointed first team coach at Championship side Queens Park Rangers.[9][10] With QPR top of the Championship in October 2022, Beale was approached by Wolverhampton Wanderers to become their new manager, but turned them down.[11]

Managerial statistics

Updated 12 November 2022

References