ROBERTO DI MATTEO had this summer planned. Friday nights watching himself on Superstars; Euro 2008 spent as an analyst for Swiss television; intermittent but focused days spent on his business administration degree at the European School of Economics in London; financially rewarding days spent tending his myriad business interests and further time spent upgrading his Uefa coaching badge from B to A. Perhaps, if he got lucky, he thought he might take a holiday.

As former footballers go, the 34-cap Italy international whose career was brought to an end in September 2000 after he broke his leg in three places as his team, Chelsea, tumbled out of the Uefa Cup at St Gallen, was doing rather well and keeping rather busy. Then his mobile phone rang.

Pete Winkelman, the charismatic chairman of MK Dons, was in a bind. His club had just won League Two but had lost their manager Paul Ince to Blackburn Rovers. Would Di Matteo be interested in the MK Dons job, a post for which more than 40 capable applicants had submitted their CVs? Di Matteo asked around. This Winkelman character had delivered on his promise to build a new stadium for the club and was regarded as a most supportive chairman. Di Matteo decided to give it a whirl.

“It was the first time I’d even considered, let alone applied for, a manager’s job,” he insists. “I went out of courtesy, partially because I thought the interview would be a great experience. I turned up, I was myself as I always am, because I know I’m not a good actor, and I thought nothing would come of it.”

Shortly before the Euro 2008 final, his mobile rang again. Winkelman summoned him to a second interview. “I thought to myself, ‘This isn’t bad after he had so many applicants’. This time, I alerted the people I wanted to work with. There were a lot of questions and all I could do was answer to the best of my ability. We didn’t talk about players or budgets, just about vision and ambition and we found we had a match.”

The third time Winkelman called, it was to offer the accidental manager a job. Di Matteo, his assistant and former teammate at Stamford Bridge Eddie Newton (“we share the same football philosophy; I trust him completely and he’s as ambitious as me”) and former Olympic sprinter Ade Mafe, a fitness coach who performed the same role at Chelsea, arrived four weeks ago.

“This is a club geared for higher levels,” says Di Matteo. “Morale is good, this is a very good group of players, but it’s not easy. My immediate aims were not to lose players and to add to the squad, but because it was early July, most of the good, available players had already found clubs.”

In his first aim he has been successful, losing only Lloyd Dyer to Leicester City since his arrival. However, his sole signing has been the uncapped Austrian Florian Sturm, leaving MK Dons short of playing quantity and quality. “Players need competition to improve, but I’ll not bring in people who won’t improve us just to keep the numbers up,” he says. “I know the players I want and I’ll fight to get them.”

As an exclusively Alist player, Di Matteo had no cause to visit Stockport County on a freezing Tuesday night, as his team will next February. Nor did he need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Hereford United.

“I don’t care about that freezing Tuesday night stuff: I played at places like that with Chelsea,” he says. “I didn’t and still don’t know every League One player, but already I’ve learned a lot about this league.”

Wisely, a man who has yet to manage a competitive game predicts a season of consolidation. Nevertheless, an intensive month’s work with his slender squad (they had a double training session on Friday and a single one yesterday) has honed his vision. “When you see MK Dons, you will see a team who are organised and know what to do,” he says. “I like my team to be honest, 100% committed, to fight for their lives and to win. And I want them to enjoy the big games like Saturday's opener at Leicester. If they can’t enjoy those games, there are other jobs available.”

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