Steve McLaren

Stephen "Steve" McClaren (born 3 May 1961) is an English professional football manager and former player who is the current manager of North American Soccer League team New York Cosmos. McClaren served as manager of the England national team from August 2006 to November 2007. He was sacked when England failed to qualify for UEFA Euro 2008.

McClaren's managerial career began at Middlesbrough in the Premier League, who won the League Cup in 2004 and were runners-up in the 2006 UEFA Cup. In 2008, McClaren became manager of FC Twente, with whom he won the club's first Eredivisie championship in the 2009–10 season. He then worked as manager of VfL Wolfsburg in Germany between May 2010 and February 2011. After a short spell as manager of Nottingham Forest, he returned to Twente in January 2012.Despite his successes at Manchester United, where he had been assistant manager to Sir Alex Ferguson from 1999 to 2001, and Middlesbrough, he was strongly

criticised by the English media following England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. McClaren's time in charge at Twente saw his professional reputation recover somewhat after he managed them to the Eredivisie title for the first time since their founding in 1965, though he was subsequently dismissed from VfL Wolfsburg and Nottingham Forest.

McClaren's return to Twente was initially greeted with enthusiasm and the club was deemed to be one of the favourites to the 2012–13 Eredivisie championship at the start of the season. After unsuccessful results, however, McClaren resigned his position on 26 February 2013. Within seven months, he was back in management with Derby County, the club where he had once been assistant manager. In May 2015, McClaren was sacked by Derby. On 10 June 2015, McClaren was appointed as head coach of Newcastle United on a three-year deal, and was sacked on 11 March 2016. Speculation was rife that McLaren would return to Derby, but in October 2016 signed a three-year contract with Chinese Super League team Shangang. He was dismissed after just three-and-a-half months in the job, after poor results in the league and his refusal to use Brazilian Everton Ribeiro.

On January 29th 2017, McLaren was approached by New York Cosmos shareholder Andreas Milton and asked to become the teams head coach for the upcoming 2017 season. McLaren flew to New York to meet the consortium that had already signed Arouna Kone from Everton, Christopher Jallet from Lyon and Nolito from Manchester City. He signed an official contract with the team on January 30th, and was announced the manager of the club on January 31st 2017. He signed a four-year contract, with an option of a year extension.