Chris Coleman

Christopher Patrick Coleman (born 10 June 1970) is a Welsh professional football manager and former player.

As a player, Coleman usually played in defence, while also occasionally appearing as a forward.

He began his career at Manchester City, leaving as a teenager to make his debut for hometown team Swansea City in 1987.

He made his first professional appearance for them aged 17, in the autumn of 1987.

He made nearly 200 appearances for the south Wales club and helped win the Welsh Cup in 1989 and 1991.

In 1991, he joined Crystal Palace, whom he represented in the Premier League.

After spending four years with Swansea, Coleman was signed by Crystal Palace in 1991 for a transfer fee set by a Football League tribunal at around £270,000, plus a percentage of any future sale.

After making 143 appearances, scoring 16 goals in that period – a 1 in 9 record explained by the fact that manager Steve Coppell often used Coleman as a makeshift centre forward.

Coleman was sold to Blackburn Rovers, the defending league champions, for £2.8 million in December 1995.

While at Palace, he was capped for Wales at senior level for the first time.

Blackburn did not retain the Premier League title they had won in 1995, and finished seventh, just missing out on a UEFA Cup place.

Coleman made 28 league appearances over his season-and-a-half at the club, and when he found himself out of the starting line-up too often (not helped by a persistent Achilles injury), he took the gamble to further his career by dropping two divisions to join Fulham.

He spent a year-and-a-half at league champions Blackburn Rovers before signing for Fulham in 1997, helping the team to two promotions from the third tier to the top flight.

He won 32 caps playing for Wales.

Coleman's playing career ended at the age of 32, when his leg was broken in a car crash.

Following this, he started his coaching career at Fulham.

Fulham, at the time in the third tier, were financed by wealthy businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, and were able to spend a record transfer fee for the division and club, of £2.1 million for Coleman in late 1997.

He quickly became club captain, and led Fulham to promotion under manager Kevin Keegan in 1998–99 to the First Division.

He remained captain and a regular in the team under new manager Jean Tigana in the 2000–01 season as Fulham made a successful start to the campaign.

However, Coleman's career was effectively ended midway through the season, after he broke his leg in a car crash, near Bletchingley in Surrey on 2 January 2001, just days before an FA Cup tie against Manchester United.

He never recovered from this injury despite playing a reserve fixture in March 2002, a game that only served as an indication that he would never again play at the highest level of English football.

He announced his retirement as a player in October 2002, but stayed at the West London club as a member of the coaching staff.

Coleman was eligible to play for his birth country of Wales, for the Republic of Ireland through his Dublin-born father, and also for the United States via his maternal grandfather.

Coleman was capped by Wales at school, youth, under-21 and senior levels.

His only competitive football appearance after his leg injuries came for Wales on 14 May 2002, when he was called up to the squad as a replacement for Danny Gabbidon, and then came on as a late substitute for goalscorer Robert Earnshaw in the 1–0 win over Germany at the Millennium Stadium.

Coleman joined Fulham's coaching staff in October 2002 under Tigana.

In his first full season as manager, he guided the club to ninth place in the 2003–04 Premier League.

In 2005, Palace supporters voted Coleman into their Centenary XI.

Coleman joined Premier League champions Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £2.8 million.

After leaving Fulham, Coleman was appointed manager of Real Sociedad, where he resigned in January 2008 due to differences with the incoming president.

He returned to England to manage Coventry City, but was dismissed in May 2010 following a poor run of results.

Palace finished 10th in Coleman's first season at Selhurst Park, but they were relegated from the new FA Premier League in his second season (although they did reach the semi-finals of the League Cup).

They won promotion as Division One champions at the first attempt, but went straight back down again despite reaching the semi-finals of both cups that season.

Coleman then managed Greek side AEL for the first half of the 2011–12 season before resigning due to financial troubles at the club.

In 2012, he took over as Wales national team manager after the death of Gary Speed, and led Wales to UEFA Euro 2016, their first major tournament since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, where they made the semi-finals.

Coleman was born in Swansea to an Irish father and has two sisters.

He was educated at St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School and Bishop Vaughan Catholic School.

Coleman has been nicknamed "Cookie" since childhood, as friends likened his eating habits to the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

The first professional team Coleman was contracted to was Manchester City, aged 16, although he later left them, citing homesickness as the major reason.

He then joined his hometown club Swansea City.