Ricky Sbragia

Richard Sbragia (born 26 May 1956) is a Scottish football coach and former player.

His playing career, mainly in the English lower leagues began at Birmingham City, Walsall, Blackpool, York City and a loan spell at Darlington. Sbragia had a brief spell in his homeland with a loan spell at Morton during his spell at Birmingham.

He has an extensive coaching career, having had spells at Manchester United, Bolton and Sunderland, where he had a brief spell as manager. He followed this by joining the Scottish Football Association, having head coach roles at Scotland U17, Scotland U19 and Scotland U21 teams.

Playing career Sbragia was born in Lennoxtown, East Dunbartonshire and is of Italian descent. He was raised in the Castlemilk housing scheme in Glasgow, and attended Grange Secondary School and played in youth teams with Jimmy Calderwood who also became a footballer and later a manager.

He started his career with Birmingham City as an apprentice in June 1972 He was unable to establish himself in the first team at Birmingham and after making 15 appearances and scoring one goal, he joined Walsall in October 1978 for a fee of £15,000. He finished the season as an ever-present with 52 appearances in all competitions and scored a goal in a 2–2 draw against Halifax Town. which set up a lucrative replay at Anfield. He moved to Manchester United as reserve team coach on 20 November 2002, where he built up a successful reserve side, nurturing the fledgling talents of Kieran Richardson and Darren Fletcher, amongst others. He was appointed as first-team coach of Bolton Wanderers on 10 October 2005. After the departure of Sam Allardyce from Bolton on 29 April 2007, Sammy Lee was appointed as manager of Bolton, with Sbragia retaining his position as first-team coach alongside Jimmy Phillips and Gary Speed.

Sbragia rejoined Sunderland's coaching staff in November 2007, and was appointed as caretaker manager following the departure of Roy Keane on 4 December 2008. He took charge of the team for their match against Manchester United, which was lost 1–0. This was followed up with a 4–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion and a 4–1 win at Hull City, although Sbragia remained coy over the possibility of taking over permanently. He was appointed as manager on a permanent basis on 27 December on an 18-month contract. On 24 May 2009, after guiding Sunderland to Premier League survival on the final day of the season, Sbragia resigned as manager of the club. He remained at Sunderland as chief scout, a post which he held until April 2011.

Sbragia was appointed head coach of the Scotland national under-17 team in August 2011. He was moved up with the Scotland national under-17 team to coach the Scotland national under-19 team for the 2012–13 season. Sbragia took temporary charge of the Scotland national under-21 team in November 2014. Sbragia took the Scotland national under-21 team job full-time on 12 August 2015. He left this position following a 4–0 defeat by Ukraine under-21s in September 2016.

On 7 July 2017, Sbragia returned to Manchester United as manager of the club's Under-23 side after 12 years away. On 21 May 2019, he left the club.

Statistics

Manager

TeamNationFromToMatchesWonDrawnLostWin %Sunderland 4 December 200824 May 2009

Honours Walsall Fourth Division runners-up: 1979–80

York City Fourth Division: 1983–84