JERSEY-BORN coach and analyst Luke Benstead has been appointed assistant coach of the Scotland national team.
The latest and perhaps most remarkable chapter in a career which has taken the former De La Salle student from the island to the very top of the game.
Benstead always knew what he wanted to do with his life.
Long before Manchester United, World Cups, European Championships and now the Scotland national team, the Jersey-born coach had a simple ambition. He wanted to be a football coach.
“I always wanted to be a football coach, but I knew that because I didn’t have a playing background, I had to maybe go at a different angle,” he said.
That different angle has taken the 37 year-old on quite some journey.
The former De La Salle student started out with work experience at Tranmere Rovers before becoming a performance analyst at Everton, eventually working his way through the club’s academy and into the first-team environment.
Manchester United followed, where he spent a year working under José Mourinho, before an extraordinary seven-year spell with Belgium’s national team. Now he has another chapter to write.
Benstead has joined Sebastian Pocognoli’s Scotland coaching staff as an assistant coach, having previously worked with the new head coach during his time with Belgium’s Under-18s.
For a Jersey boy who simply wanted a way into professional football, it is some story.
“I knew from around 18 that I wanted to be in professional football as a coach,” Benstead said. “But I knew I’d have to be open-minded to what opportunities came, and I was willing to take any opportunity, really.”
That willingness has certainly paid off.
His time in Belgium gave him experience of World Cups, European Championships and a Nations League final, first as an analyst under Roberto Martinez and later as a coach under Domenico Tedesco.
Benstead is leaving his current role as assistant coach and set-piece specialist at Turkish club Istanbul Basaksehir to join the Scotland setup.
His experience at Belgium means he arrives in Scotland with an understanding of international football that few coaches can match.
“I was lucky enough to be with the Belgian national team for around six or seven years,” he said.
“I know how to approach it, but of course, it’s just getting the best out of the group of players, the best out of the staff, and working towards getting the best opportunities possible for the team.”
That experience will now be put to use as Scotland embark on a new era following Steve Clarke’s departure.
Clarke leaves behind a side which has qualified for three of the last four major tournaments and, perhaps most importantly, has restored a sense of belief around the national team.
For Benstead and Pocognoli, the challenge is not to reinvent the wheel, but to build upon it.
“It’s our job to continue the positives and put our own feeling in it and move it forward.
“The Scotland national team is in a really, really good place, and we’re looking forward to pushing it even further.”
Benstead’s connection with Pocognoli was another major attraction.
The pair stayed in touch after working together in Belgium, with Benstead describing his new boss as “a very talented coach” and insisting: “We knew the moment that we got him that he would do really good things as a coach.”
That existing relationship helped make the decision to join Scotland an easy one.
“The Scotland national team job is a very big job,” he said. “It’s a very good squad. They just came from a World Cup, and it was really exciting.
“To combine an exciting project with a coach that I’ve worked with before, it was only a win-win.”
Benstead will also bring his expertise in performance analysis and set-pieces to the Scotland setup.
The transition from analyst to coach has been a key part of his development, allowing him to take the detail he once studied in the analysis room and apply it directly on the training pitch.
“What I try and do is bring both of them together,” he said. “I take my analytic skills and use it to help me plan training sessions, feedback to players, things like that.”
His set-piece responsibilities could prove particularly important in international football, where time together is limited and fine margins can decide the biggest matches.
At the 2018 World Cup, whilst Benstead was an analyst, a corner that found the head of Vincent Kompany was the difference maker against Brazil as they progressed through the Quarter-finals.
“When we [Belgium] played Brazil in the World Cup, we won because we scored a corner,” he said.
“At the highest level, these details can make the difference. You come up against the best players of their country, so you always have to be ready to perform.”
It is a philosophy he has picked up from some of the best in the business.
When asked about his time working under Mourinho, Benstead was unequivocal.
“He was one of my biggest inspirations,” he said. “José is a fantastic person, and when he makes you a part of his staff, he’s a real teacher of the game.
“The things he taught me, I will always be grateful for. Very hardworking, very detailed, and you have to be at that level also.”
There is something rather fitting about that final description.
Because for all the glamour that has followed his career, Benstead’s journey began in a much smaller footballing environment, on an island where reaching the professional game can feel like an almost impossible ambition.
He found another route and took every opportunity.
And the 15-year-old Jersey footballer who dreamed of coaching professionally is now helping prepare Scotland’s players for their next international chapter – while the infamous Boston drinking demons get ready to follow them every step of the way.
“It’s their life. It’s their passion,” he said of the coaches who have influenced him. “And if you get the chance to do something that you enjoy, you should do it 100%. And that’s what they do.”
It seems Benstead has done exactly that.
