Playing football at a semi-pro level in the late 1990s, a young Kevin Thelwell began to mop up the badges of FA and UEFA to go with his diploma in sport science.
At that time, by playing on lots of mud and in front of two men and a dog, we do not know where the trip could take it, if anywhere.
But he knew that a career in football was something he wanted to continue. Before he was even 30 years old, Thelwell had already started to make important measures.
In 1998, a new role with the Gallic FA saw him supervised the delivery of coach lessons and, for the next seven years, he cut his teeth in professional football.
In the summer of 2005, Billy Davies was heading Thelwell to become the new youth chief in Preston North End.
Clearly impressed by what he had seen, Davies took Thelwell with him to Derby County a year later.
Kevin Thelwell will be the new sports director of the Rangers when he leaves Everton
Thelwell worked with Sean Dyche in Everton and they managed to save the relegation club
Still only 32 years at the time, Thelwell became the youngest director of the English football academy when he played the role at Pride Park. But it was when he joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2009 that his career really started to take off.
Overall, he spent 11 years with wolves, experiencing many ups and downs before leaving for a new challenge to join the New York Red Bulls in 2020.
After two years in the Big Apple, Thelwell was hungry for another bite in the Premier League and returned as a new sports director of Everton in 2022.
His three years in Goodson Park have been marked by all kinds of financial constraints that preceded his stay at the club, and it was announced last month that Thelwell should leave at the end of the season.
All this now seems that it will bring him to a new chapter from Glasgow with rangers. Seeking to appoint a new sports director, the Rangers identified Thelwell as the man they wanted.
The 51 -year -old Englishman has already entered and has toured Ibrox as well as the club training center in Auchenhowie.
And now Thelwell will soon dust off the club’s costume, straighten her tie and polish a pair of famous brown brown.
But that rangers fans can expect from him if, as expected, he receives the task of reshaping and restructuring the entire football department?
Now Thelwell will have work to do in Ibrox as he seeks to turn the fortune of the Rangers
Well, one thing is certain. Given the depth of the experience he has in the role of sports director, Thelwell has proven that he was more than capable of working in difficult circumstances.
At the start of its time with Wolves, the club underwent a double relegation, in the fall of the Premier League to Ligue 1 in the blink of an eye.
In terms of reconstruction, it was a fairly major operation. Thelwell began as head of the Academy at Molinées, then responsible for the development of football and recruitment, before becoming a sports director.
In his various roles, he worked alongside managers such as Mick McCarthy, Kenny Jackett, Paul Lambert and Nuno Espírito Santo.
It was under Nuno where things really started to take off, the promotion winning the club back in the Premier League in 2018 before establishing itself again as an element in the elite.
It was the influx of Portuguese players at that time that turned out to be the key to a large part of what the Wolves were doing under their Chinese owners. The influence of “super-agent” Jorge Mendes, whose customers include Jose Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo, was something Thelwell had to manage.
But it was in Wolves that his work at the Academy really started to shine – and the emphasis on the development of young people is something that remains a key element of his philosophy.
Addressing the Podcast of Executive Education of VSI last year, Thelwell said: “Does the style of play take place throughout the club and in the academy? Yeah, we try to do this.
Thelwell had a good relationship with Dyche … and will try to do the same with anyone who manages the Rangers next season
“To quote Dan Ashworth when he worked at FA, the only thing that changes should be the size of the shirt.
“The more clear we are concerning the way we want the game to be played, the clearer the players on this subject, the more they should move through age groups and through this pipeline.
“The academy is certainly a key element of the strategy. In my opinion, this should be a key element in the strategy of each football club.
“I am a big believer because I went through this path, I started as manager of the Academy, so I am a great believer to give young people, young players, opportunities.
Over the past decade, Red Bull has built one of the most well -managed football empires on the planet. Built on innovative data and methods of screening, this approach left a sustainable impact on Thelwell after working as a sports manager of New York Red Bulls for two years between 2020-2022.
On the influence of data in football, he said: “ I was lucky to go to New York and had this experience, especially with the Red Bull Group.
“They are very strong in Red Bull around the data, but also in the United States, where they have a strong data perspective.
“I had two years and one bit by working in close collaboration with the data and seeing how it could not only have an impact on New York, but also how it had an impact throughout the group.
“Coming to Everton, we will have regular criticisms and conversations around what the data tell us. If we have a performance problem, let’s not do on the intestinal instinct.
“Let us have a wider conversation around him, and generally, it is best to go to the Insights team first, to communicate what we think that the performance problem is and help them help us make more informed decisions.”
After the problems that Thelwell was confronted with Wolves after double relegation, life in Everton was not really easier.
The club has been plagued by financial show problems in recent years due to reckless expenses that have once again animated its time on the Merseyside.
Everton was affected by a deduction from eight points last season. It was only thanks to the work of Thelwell and Manager Sean Dyche that they managed to avoid relegation.
“Dyche and Thelwell both deserve a lot of credit for keeping Everton,” said a source at Mail Sport.
“They were constantly fighting fires and mainly functioning with a hand attached behind their back because of all financial constraints.
“If you ask most Evertonians, I think most of them would probably say that, everything considered, Thelwell has done a very decent job in the past three years.
“The salary bill and net expenses were horrible when he arrived, but he worked through it. Regarding his signatures, there have been more safe than gaps. Recruitment has gradually improved over the past two years.
“Last summer, they signed Iliman Ndiaye and Jake O’Brien clubs in France. Both have turned out to be good signatures for not huge money.
“Thelwell knows the type of market on which he can shop and, above all, where to look. Whether he is or the scouts with whom he works, there is an eye for a player.
“Everton also did well to hold Jarrad Branthwaite last summer when Manchester United came with large offers. Thelwell did well in all of this.
Working with a defined budget will be a key element in the discount of the Rangers, but there will probably be an increase in finance made available if and when the proposed takeover takes place.
On the problems he faced with Everton, Thelwell added: “I am not the biggest mathematician in the world, I am not so brilliant on this side of things.
“But the reality is that you cannot spend more than you win. So, bringing us back in a kind of financial balance and applying this common sense is a large part of the work.
“It’s the same for sports directors around the world. Thus, the two large rocks in my procedure are the financial balance, then begin to build something in which people can believe on the ground.
As Thelwell begins at Rangers, the only way is in place after another season of abject failure.
Faced with working with a hand tied behind his back with Everton, he is no stranger to a challenge.
But resuscitating the fortune of the Rangers seems to be his greatest challenge to date. The man who built his reputation in Wolves now has the task of reappearing the Bears.
