Simon Grayson won the League Cup and two play-off finals as a player with Leicester, and the Football League Trophy with Blackpool. As a manager, he has won four promotions from League One.
But the Yorkshireman still reckons that winning the Indian Super League with Bangalore-based Bengaluru FC this season would rank alongside anything he has achieved in football.
Grayson, whose side take on Kerala Blasters for a place in the play-off semi-finals against Manchester City ’s sister club Mumbai City FC, said: “Winning the ISL would pretty much be up there because it’s completely different and out of my comfort zone. We won the Durand Cup in pre-season, which was massive because the club hadn’t won that before and it’s an historic tournament, the third-oldest cup competition in the world.
“But if we were to win the league I’d look back on it as a fantastic achievement. I had offers in England last summer but I came to India because I wanted something different, a new challenge, both professionally and personally. It has been a life experience adapting to a different culture and having to adapt my coaching style again has been the biggest learning curve.
"It’s not that you’re set in your ways but at home you know all about the players, how teams play, you know when you’re playing — Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday — but here you can play Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday...
"When I arrived, I wanted to play quite a high pressing game as well, but after a few days I realised there’s no way you can run that much in the heat and humidity. We train at 8.30am because it’s just so hot and whereas, say, a possession session in England might be four minutes, here you have to cut it by half because players physically couldn’t do it.
"So I’ve had to change my coaching philosophy completely but I wanted to test myself and prove to myself that I’m still a good coach and man-manager. That’s a big thing, man-managing players from a different culture. Working out what makes them tick, who needs an arm round them, who needs a water bottle throwing at them in the changing room.
"That has happened once this year and none of the players had seen that side to me but it had to be done because sometimes when you’re losing they need to see a different side to you."
Grayson has clearly got the right reaction, with Bengaluru winning their last eight games — ending Mumbai’s 18-game unbeaten run in the process — to seal their play-off spot. He said: “The atmosphere in stadiums here is fantastic. We beat Kerala at home recently in front of 20,000 fans and at least half were from Kerala.
"Away from football it has been fascinating as well. We have to fly to every away game and sometimes we’re gone for four days, which means occasionally there’s a little down time. In Kolkata, I went to see the Queen Victoria Memorial and when we had a few days off I went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I’d never have thought about going to the Taj Mahal while I was sitting in my house in Leeds."
