Liverpool win 'greatest' in Argyle boss Muslic's career
Plymouth Argyle head coach Miron Muslic says his side's victory over Liverpool in the FA Cup is the "biggest moment" in his coaching career.
Ryan Hardie's second-half penalty was enough as Argyle - bottom of the Championship - beat the Premier League leaders 1-0 at Home Park.
Muslic's side held on as the much-changed Reds tried to find an equaliser and take the tie into extra time.
"Normally I'm very good in my words and very eloquent, but I'm a little bit speechless to be fair," the Austrian, who replaced Wayne Rooney as Argyle boss last month, told BBC Sport.
"I'm very emotional because I realised the task today, I realised the opponent, I realised it's the FA Cup, it's the biggest cup in the world, it's the most famous cup in the world and we played Liverpool.
"It was omnipresent and very big in the city, in the club and in our locker room and we just wanted to represent Argyle as best as possible,
"The gameplan was to be structured, to be organised, to be brave, to fill it with intensity and just to show ourselves and use this huge stage.
"It's an opportunity for the players to shine and I think the lads did it outstanding."
Having joined the club as a relative unknown in English football from Belgian side Cercle Brugge, Muslic has now arguably led Argyle to the greatest win in their history.
A former refugee from war-torn Bosnia, Muslic made his name in his adopted homeland of Austria before leading Cercle Brugge to the Conference League this season.
But he says all of those experiences pale into insignificance compared to the win over Liverpool.
"This is the biggest moment, so far, in my coaching career. No doubt," the 42-year-old added.
"It's the FA Cup, it's Liverpool."
But he says there is an even greater ambition on the horizon - guiding Plymouth to Championship survival.
"The biggest moment is yet to come at the end of the season when we are staying up," he said.
"This is my goal, this is what I have on my mind, inside my soul, this is the big, big goal for Argyle and then this will be the next biggest moment in my career.
"We started this turnover in the half-time against Burnley after being 5-0 down and my message to the lads was 'it takes a lot of courage to go outside and finish the game, and if we can manage this we won't change the result, but we will make a step forward and this step forward will help us for the next challenging days and weeks' and we did this.
"We followed just a couple of days later at Sunderland, a week later West Brom and now Liverpool.
"It's a hell of a task in front of us, no doubt, but I think we are ready to take this challenge."
'I'm going to each nachos' - Muslic
The result was one few would have expected, but for Argyle chairman Simon Hallett it is something that he felt was coming.
Hiring a relatively unknown manager who had never coached in England before was seen by some as a risk, but the Argyle owner says Muslic has the credentials to make his club better.
"We knew how good he was because we can look at the facts and we knew the impact that he had when he was a coach at Cercle Brugge," Hallett said.
"Our data people had done quite extensive research on him, we had an external data service, looking at the impact he had on Cercle Brugge.
"It's very hard when you're assessing managers to disaggregate their budgets from how good they are, but using data in the proper way you can now see the impact that they have had over and above the budget they had to spend.
"Miron clearly is a coach who can be an attacking force, he's also a coach who is very aggressive in his use of young players.
"And he's very likeable, which is relevant as the players have to like him. He also has this remarkable emotional intelligence, he can read the room."
And Muslic once again showed that emotional intelligence at the end of his post-match press conference.
After being asked how he would celebrate after the win he replied: "I'm going to go home and re-watch the game. I'm going to eat some nachos and drink a Fanta."
