Michael Beale (football coach)
Michael Beale (born 4 September 1980) is an English football manager who last managed Scottish Premiership club Rangers. Beale played football as a youth, but retired at 21 and became a coach. He worked for Chelsea, Liverpool and São Paulo. After stints working as first team coach with Steven Gerrard at Rangers and Aston Villa, Beale became manager of Queens Park Rangers in June 2022. He left QPR after five months to become manager of Rangers, but was sacked from that role in October 2023. Playing career 
Beale's playing career started at Charlton Athletic and, after being released by Charlton, he had short trials at FC Twente in the Netherlands, and at clubs in the United States, before calling an end to his playing days at the age of 21. Coaching career 
Beale's next step in football was to invest some of the money he had made as a youth player into setting up a futsal club for children in his hometown of Bromley, South London. It was while training children here that he caught the attention of Chelsea Academy boss Neil Bath who, in 2002, offered him a role as a part-time youth coach at their Cobham Training Centre, where he worked as assistant coach of Chelsea's Under-7s and Under-9s squads. After admitting to becoming somewhat frustrated with the lack of progression of young players into Chelsea's first team since the takeover of Roman Abramovich in 2003, Beale took an offer to work at the Liverpool Academy, beginning as the coach of the Under-15s team, before progressing to become coach of the Under-21s. It was in this role that Beale first worked alongside Steven Gerrard, who was coaching the Liverpool Under-18s at the time. In January 2017, Beale, who was a long-time fan of South American football, accepted the opportunity to move to Brazilian club São Paulo, learning Portuguese to act as assistant to Rogério Ceni. However, six months later, Ceni and his backroom team were sacked after a string of poor results. After a short time back working with Liverpool's youth set-up, Beale was contacted by Steven Gerrard to act as the first team coach at Rangers. In three years in Scotland under Gerrard, Beale and Gary McAllister, Rangers won their 55th league title in the 2020–21 league season preventing city rivals Celtic from winning a tenth successive league title. In November 2021, Gerrard was offered the role of manager at Aston Villa, following the sacking of Dean Smith. Beale and McAllister followed him to the Premier League club. Managerial career

Queens Park Rangers 
On 1 June 2022, Beale was appointed first team coach at Championship side Queens Park Rangers. He had a mixed start to his career at QPR; winning only one of his first five matches, losing at home to Blackpool (who were eventually relegated that same season) and only securing a point at Sunderland thanks to the last minute heroics of Ilias Chair and Seny Dieng, both of whom scored in injury time to rescue an unlikely point. Beale and QPR then found a superb run of form, winning eight of their next eleven league matches, sending them to the top of the Championship table. However, this form was proven to be temporary as they went on to lose four of their next five matches. They were well beaten at Birmingham and Coventry as well as losing at home to Huddersfield and West Brom. With QPR top of the Championship in October 2022, Beale was approached by Wolverhampton Wanderers to become their new manager, but reportedly turned them down. Upon turning down the opportunity to become manager at Wolves, Beale spoke about integrity and loyalty in an interview for the QPR website:

“Integrity is a real big thing for me and loyalty. You don’t give it to receive it back, but if those are the things you live by then at times when you are put in a position you have to be strong by them.”

Rangers 
On 28 November 2022, Beale accepted an approach to leave QPR and manage Scottish side Rangers, where he had worked previously as the first team coach under Steven Gerrard. Beale had a successful start to his Rangers managerial career, winning his first four matches in charge, after which he was named Scottish Premiership manager of the month for December. Two defeats at Hampden by Celtic meant that Rangers finished the 2022–23 season without a trophy. Beale was sacked on 1 October 2023, after a third defeat in the first seven league matches of the 2023–24 season. Managerial statistics

Honours

Rangers 
Scottish League Cup runners up: 2022–23
Individual

 Scottish Premiership Manager of the Month: December 2022

References 

Living people
1980 births
Footballers from Bromley
English men's footballers
Men's association football wingers
English football managers
Association football coaches
English Football League managers
Scottish Professional Football League managers
Queens Park Rangers F.C. managers
Rangers F.C. managers
Aston Villa F.C. non-playing staff
Liverpool F.C. non-playing staff
Rangers F.C. non-playing staff
Chelsea F.C. non-playing staff
Charlton Athletic F.C. players
São Paulo FC non-playing staff
English expatriate men's footballers
FC Twente players
Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands
English expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands
English expatriate sportspeople in Brazil