Sunderland \u2019til I Die: How Simon Grayson went from Sunderland woe to managing Messi rival in India Bengaluru FC\/TwitterSeason three of the hit Netflix series Sunderland \u2019til I Die will hit TV screens on Tuesday, as the fall and rise of Sunderland AFC continues to be chartered to worldwide audiences. After relegation from the Championship in 2018 in Season One, to their unsuccessful bid for promotion from League One in 2019 in Season Two, the story picks up in Season Three with the Black Cats bidding to win promotion again in 2021\/22 after a further two failed attempts. Way back when Season One first aired in December 2018, Simon Grayson was the manager at the start of the 2017\/18 campaign. He was sacked after just 18 matches in charge, though, and Sunderland ultimately failed to recover from a poor start to the season and were relegated to the third tier of English football. Having had successful spells in charge of Blackpool, Leeds United, Huddersfield Town and Preston North End, Grayson had to go back to the drawing board after a brutal spell on Wearside. What has happened to Simon Grayson since Sunderland \u2019til I Die? Grayson has had spells in charge of Bradford City, Blackpool and Fleetwood Town since leaving Sunderland but it was his decision to move to India to manage Bengaluru FC which really caught the eye. In June 2022, Grayson uprooted his life to Bengalore, India, to take charge of the Indian Super League side. \u201cIt was an incredible journey both professionally and personally,\u201d Grayson told Dexerto, on behalf of Bitcoin Casinos. For most of my career managing, I have managed in Yorkshire and Lancashire and up to Sunderland. \u201cSo if I was ever going to manage away from home, I might as well go the whole hog and work 5,000 miles away. \u201cEven when I got offered the contract, I still thought I wouldn\u2019t go. I didn\u2019t think I would have it in me to leave my family and do something that was completely new to me and out of my comfort zone. \u201cBut I just thought why not? I had done what I needed to do in England for now, the jobs I had been offered that summer I thought I could maybe come back to them but this was an opportunity. \u201cIt was an incredible journey. It was a different culture, a different lifestyle, the people that you meet, the different cities you went to and ultimately I was being paid to sample a part of the world I never thought I would do. \u201cIf you put that together with the professional side of it, I never knew what was coming the next day with the different cultures, facilities, and I liked that. \u201cIt challenged me and I know I am a far better coach and person now than when I left for India. The football experience was good.\u201d Managing an Indian icon Grayson enjoyed immediate success, guiding his new team to success in the Durand Cup \u2013 a trophy he describes as the equivalent of England\u2019s Carabao Cup. But after his first 10 games in charge, he was under pressure after some mixed results in the Indian Super League. What followed was an incredible 12 game winning run which saw Bengaluru reach the final of the Indian Super League play-offs where they were heartbreakingly beaten on penalties. Grayson made the difficult decision to drop his captain, Sunil Chhetri, at the start of that run. Chhetri, who is an icon of the Indian game and is the third highest active international goalscorer behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. \u201cUnless you were really into your football, you would never think India have a player of this success,\u201d Grayson explained. \u201cHe was just this icon where every time we travelled, he was getting mobbed in airports. \u201cIt was an incredible experience just to be his manager. I ultimately made one of the toughest decisions I ever made as a manager and I dropped him at the start of the 12 game run we went on. \u201cI thought to myself he wasn\u2019t playing as well as he could do, but he was this icon of Indian football. But if I was going to go, I was going to go down fighting and do what\u2019s best for the football club. \u201cIt was sink or swim and thankfully I swam and we got to the two finals after that.\u201d What is next for Simon Grayson? The 2023-24 season began with Bengaluru reaching a third cup final under Grayson, as they were beaten in the final of the Indian Super Cup by Odisha FC. However, he opted to leave the club by mutual consent in December and he is on the hunt for a fresh managerial opportunity after reviving his career in India. \u201cThe hardest part was being away from the family,\u201d Grayson concluded. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy but it has opened my eyes to maybe managing abroad again. Whether it\u2019s that far afield or in Europe or back in the UK, I\u2019m open to anything. \u201cI\u2019m only 54 and still have the hunger and desire. I\u2019ve managed nearly 800 games and when I see Neil Warnock going back to work in his seventies I am thinking: \u2018Fair play, Neil\u2019. \u201cI still have plenty of life in me but I won\u2019t be doing it until I\u2019m 75, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d Season three of Sunderland \u2019til I Die is released on Netflix on Tuesday, December 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunderland \u2019til I Die: How Simon Grayson went from Sunderland woe to managing Messi rival in India Bengaluru FC\/TwitterSeason three of the hit Netflix series Sunderland \u2019til I Die will hit TV screens on Tuesday, as the fall and rise of Sunderland AFC continues to be chartered to worldwide audiences. After relegation from the Championship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}