Pro Licence is a round-world ticket

Latics assistant manager Gerry Taggart writes for Chronicle Sport every Friday

I RECENTLY collected my UEFA Pro Licence, which is a must-have these days.

Originally at its inception it was about coaching in Europe, or within European competitions.

But basically what it means now is that I now have a license to go and coach anywhere in the world.

As the highest coaching qualification in football, it opens a lot of doors coaching and managing-wise.

What happens is you move up the system through the levels which are all about coaching techniques, styles and methods.

Then it about handling the media, sports science, managing up to board of directors and chief executive level and the general, day-to-day running of a football club as well as transfer budgets and the like.

Basically, it is a gateway to bigger and better things.

While I was over in Belfast collecting the diploma I watched the national team gain a 0-0 draw against Italy last Friday night.

I thought Northern Ireland played really well and Warren Feeney put in a really good shift. He didn't really have any chances in what was a pretty tight game that only featured one or two opportunities for either side.

He was being marked by a £22million-rated centre-half, Giorgio Chiellini of Juventus, and did pretty well up against him to be fair.

From there it was a poor result to draw 1-1 in the Faroe Islands but if you look back down the years, Northern Ireland are famous for it.

The Faroes did to Northern Ireland what Northern Ireland did to Italy, which was to stifle them.

You could say the good result on Friday came back to haunt them.

After watching the Italy game, I flew back over here to watch us take on Brentford on Saturday.

It was very disappointing to start in the way we did, to go 1-0 down in only the fourth minute.

But we always knew we were in the game.

The lads showed great character to come from behind and we deserved the 3-1 win playing some really good stuff.

As for tomorrow, Colchester are a very direct team who play off a lot of 'second balls'.

They are a big, tall team and I believe that six of their outfield players stand at six feet tall or over.

That is obviously a concern for us, especially with the way they will play to their strengths.

We have got to be able to work that out and match it.