New Caley Thistle assistant manager Brian Rice says the chance to work with manager John Hughes was too good to turn down.
Rice, pictured below, quit his job as a youth coach with Qatari club Al-Khor last week to replace Russell Latapy as Hughes’ assistant.
The 51-year-old was Hughes’ assistant at former clubs Falkirk and Hibernian and said the time was right for him to return to Scotland.
Rice said: “I couldn’t say for certain but I don’t think I’d have come back for anything other than to work for John.
“But I needed a bit of persuading to leave the wonderful life I had in Qatar.
“I worked for a club which really looked after me and the facilities and weather there were really first class.
“The sun was shining and the Aspire Academy is the best training facility in the world. All the leading clubs use it during the winter training break.
“I was working with a fantastic coach in Romanian Laszlo Boloni.
” I learned so much from him and that was the reason I went away in the first place – to broaden my horizons and gain experience.
“It was good to challenge myself and see if it was for me but once I knew John was serious about getting me involved I didn’t really take much convincing.
“I spoke to Al-Khor and, to be fair, they tried everything to get me back. But the chance to work with John again just proved to be too strong.”
Inverness are in Europa League action tomorrow night, playing the return leg of their second qualifying round tie against Romanian side FC Astra.
Caley Jags are trailing 1-0 from last Thursday’s game at Caledonian Stadium but Rice reckons the Highlanders have nothing to lose in Romania.
He added: “It’s not over. I’ve been to many European games and I always feel that the home team have losing a goal in the back of their minds.
“It’s always discussed among coaches. It’s only 1-0 and a goal changes the game.
“They created two or three chances, like us, and I think we dominated possession without really threatening quite as much as we would have liked to do.
“We knew where their danger would come from and fair play to their goal scorer Constantin Budescu, because he does score a lot of goals from free kicks.
“We knew beforehand that he was going to be a danger to us with them and that’s how it proved to be.”