Career
Roberts was a central midfielder, [2] and captained the Welsh Schools side. [3] He played in north Wales for Bangor City, Bethesda Athletic and Llangefni Town, [2] [4] before moving to the United States at the age of 19 after receiving a scholarship to attend Furman University. [2] At Furman, he was named Southern Conference player of the year in 1986 and 1988. [5] He later played in the American Professional Soccer League for the New Mexico Chiles, where he was player-manager. [3]
After returning to Wales, he became Anglesey Football Development Officer in 1991. [2]
In June 2007, Roberts resigned as manager of Porthmadog to take up the position of Football Association of Wales technical director. [2] He has also coached the Wales under-16, Wales under-18 and Wales B teams, as well as helping coach the women's under-17 team. [2] In 2014, he was the subject of documentary series called Byd Pêl-droed Osian Roberts; it was shown on S4C. [3] [6]
On 21 July 2015, Roberts was promoted to assistant manager of the Wales national team under team manager Chris Coleman. [7] Coleman resigned the manager role in November 2017 and Roberts stated that he wished to become the new national team manager. [8] Roberts was retained as assistant manager following the appointment of Ryan Giggs as Wales manager. [9]
On 1 August 2019, it was announced that Roberts had become technical director of the Morocco national team. [10] [11] He resigned in July 2021. [12]
In August 2021, he became assistant manager to Patrick Vieira at Crystal Palace. [13] [14] Vieira was sacked by Crystal Palace in March 2023 with Roberts and other coaching staff also being released. [15]
In December 2023, Italian club Como announced the appointment of Roberts as their new caretaker coach until the end of the 2023–24 Serie B season, replacing Cesc Fàbregas, who had also been caretaker; Roberts also served as head of development for the club. [16] [17] [18] [19] He eventually guided the club to promotion to Serie A after 21 years by finishing in second place. [20] [21] [22] Fàbregas returned to the role in July 2024. [23]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
