“I thought it could be exciting,” David Webb tells Your Site. Those were his initial thoughts on joining Georgia’s staff in 2023. It turned out to become so much more, taking this young English coach all the way to Euro 2024. “It turned out to be amazing.”
Being involved in that campaign, Georgia's first major international tournament, is part of the nation's football history now. But Webb's own time with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has come to an end. He believes he is ready to pursue his ambition to be a head coach.
"I have had a good grounding, so many experiences that can give me an edge, working with big clubs and small clubs, at home and abroad. I can manage players and manage up. I have had so many different roles and that has helped. My profile is very different."
It has been some journey, not that it ever really felt like a choice. "It is more like a calling rather than a career. I suffocate myself in football," Webb concedes. He never earned a professional contract as a player. "I just worked normal jobs, gyms and stuff like that."
At 21, there was what he calls "an epiphany" that coaching was his route into the game, working his way up as an academy coach at Wimbledon then Crystal Palace. "I used to get next to nothing but I loved it." His first full-time role in football was at Millwall.
What is interesting about Webb is that he has so many stories because, despite his love of being on the grass, that determination to be in football took him to Southampton as a scout and to Bournemouth as part of Eddie Howe's first-team recruitment team.
At Millwall, he did study visits around Europe in his spare time, taking in trips to Ajax and Athletic Club, bouncing ideas off Rudi Voller at Bayer Leverkusen. He worked in recruitment at Tottenham and was even the sporting director at Ostersunds in Sweden.
Webb insists that coaching was always the goal but life takes these twists and turns. And besides, he understood the situation. "If you have not played 300 games in League One or League Two, there is always that stigma. I knew that I needed something extra."
It is one of the reasons why he pursued a master's degree in sports psychology, adding another layer to his learning. "You can have all the ideas but if players won't follow you, if you can't create relationships, it all falls down. I needed that nailed down," says Webb.
"I saw the importance of it in my scouting work too. Even with the advancement of AI and all the data, you need to know the person. You have found a gem? Great. But what are they like? Top coaches like Mauricio Pochettino, that is what they want to know.
"It is about more than their playing attributes. You can see that just by watching them. What are they going to bring to the culture? How are they going to affect the dressing room? What about when we lose? How will they behave when the chips are down?"
Webb was able to put that into practice with Georgia where a simple coaching role morphed into a lot more, taking in tactical preparations, setting up the coaching camps, working on the presentations to the group and exploring that psychological aspect.
"The one-on-one conversations are so important. With Georgia, we had a player whose son had a medical condition that he had not told anyone about. As a coach, if you judge purely on performance, not knowing what is going on at home, then you will miss a lot."
He credits Willy Sagnol, Georgia's head coach, for giving him the opportunity to work with world-class players like Kvaratskhelia. The connection with Sagnol, the former France international, all stemmed from a chance meeting at an under-19 game.
"We were sat next to each other and just started chatting. We ended up meeting regularly. I learned a lot from him because he is very calm. He can pick up the phone to Zinedine Zidane, to Thierry Henry. It is pretty impressive. But he is very humble."
"He learned himself from Carlo Ancelotti and you can see that in his approach to man-management. That side of the game, how he sets up his team, especially during that European Championship was impressive. His tournament experience was invaluable."
Georgia defeated Cristiano Ronaldo and the might of Portugal to qualify for the knockout stages in Germany and were only eliminated from Euro 2024 following a defeat to eventual winners Spain - in a tie that they had led late into the first half.
Webb is proud of what they achieved. "We were one of the lower-ranked teams so we framed it as feeling like the hunters. It really helped us to get into that mindset." In the two years since, the focus shifted to evolving the style of play to reach the next level.
"Players have gone on to bigger things. Kvara is a superstar now. And we went from a counter-pressing team to more possession based, implementing a good style that the players are enjoying. And we cemented our place in Nations League Group B."
Webb's next move might yet be in the international game, using those lessons learned during his Georgia adventure. He believes it helped him become better. "We had to be really precise with our work because we did not have them for long," he explains.
There have been conversations with national federations within Europe about head coaching roles. But there has been interest too from clubs in England and on the continent. Webb has his reasons for wanting to have another crack at club football.
For all his roles in football, the 46-year-old's only appointment as a manager so far was a brief stint in the National League with York City. There are still regrets about how that experience played out, a bout of COVID preventing him from taking the team at first.
That was out of his hands but he is honest enough to admit that he has worked on his general fitness since then and looks in much better shape now. "Physically, I was not in great condition at the time. Players see that. It was not a good look," he acknowledges.
"It changed my perspective around what you need to do to be an elite coach." Just another example of Webb's commitment to being the best that he can be. Now, he is after the next opportunity.
"The most important thing for me is working with ambitious, successful, good people. But I am open-minded and adaptable. This job is about fitting players into the jigsaw puzzle and working out how to connect with them. And I think I can make players better."
