WHATEVER the outcome of tomorrow night's European Cup Winners' Cup final in Brussels between Paris St Germain (PSG) and Austrian side Rapid Vienna, the PSG coach Luis Fernandez has already decided that he has had enough.

Exhausted at the end of a season which has seen his side in the front line not only of their successful Cup Winners" Cup run but also in a two way league battle with Auxerre Fernandez has decided that in the interests of his health he will opt out of the coach's seat at PSG.

In an interview with French daily, Le Monde last week Fernandez said: "This is a environment where you work under huge stress. My wife watched one of our games on television recently and she got an awful fright. I cannot go on like this. Some mornings when I look at myself in the mirror, I think `Luis, be careful, you're playing with fire'."

Luis Fernandez is only 37 years old, young for a top class European coach. Furthermore, he is speaking of a French soccer environment which, for all its obvious stress, is nonetheless relatively tranquil by comparison with Spanish or Italian soccer.

That point was taken up by Fernandez's predecessor at PSG, Portugal's Artur Jorge, currently coach to European Championship finalists, Switzerland.

"Paris is a quiet piazza by comparison with Lisbon, Milan, Rome, Madrid or even Monaco," said Jorge. "PSG have good directors and good fans ... Probably Fernandez's problem is that although PSG have been near the top for his two years there, they have not won anything yet.

"But then, you can't always win and that's what is stressful about this job, you can't always win."

Fernandez's decision comes, ironically, at the end of a week when the affairs of two of Europe's most prestigious clubs, Bayern Munich and AC Milan, underlined one more time the manifold variety of pressures to which modern coaches are subject.

As reported here last week, Bayern sacked coach Otto Rehhagel on the eve of their UEFA Cup Final first leg tie with Bordeaux, and at a moment when the Munich club are joint top of the Bundesliga table with reigning champions, Borussia Dortmund.

Two days after Rehhagel got the heave ho, Milan coach Fabio Capello announced that he was leaving Italy's number one club to move to Spanish side Real Madrid. Capello's announcement came three days after his fourth Italian title win in five years with Milan.

It would seem that good results, getting to prestigious finals and, in Capello's case, even winning, are no longer enough to guarantee tenure of contract in the international circus of "soccer biz".

Milan did win the Italian title, Bayern could still record a UEFA Bundesliga double and PSG, while now likely to lose the French title to Auxerre, could still pick up tomorrow night's Cup Winners Cup trophy at the expense of Rapid Vienna.

Artur Jorge may be right. The coach cannot always win. Fabio Capello is held responsible by influential Milan insiders for the matches he did not win (two European Champions Cup finals and two Intercontinental Cup finals) rather than cherished for those he did. Capello got the message, felt insulted and packed his bags.

Otto Rehhagel, in his first season with Bayern, might have thought he was doing well, but key directors and senior players, including Lothar Matthaeus and Juergen Klinsmann, wanted him out - because of alleged, potentially damaging, caution on his part.

Fernandez may well have decided not to wait for the push. He knows only too well that if PSG were to lose tomorrow night and then go on to lose the French title, then his future with the club would be compromised.

There is no doubt that the coach of a top grade side like Bayern, PSG or Milan faces a remarkable combination of pressures. He must produce results and protect the club's image while at the same time dealing with a daily barrage of contrasting requests from his owner, directors, fans (especially if he loses a game or two) players (especially those highly paid, expensive international stars he now regularly leaves on the sideline) and above all, from the sports media.

He has to learn "media speak", a contorted language which allows him to send obscure signals to owner, fan, player or journalist without seeming to say anything at all. Sometimes, the pressure becomes too much and the coach simply quits. Sometimes, as in the case of Barcelona's legendary Dutchman Johan Cruyff the pressure leads to a heart attack.

Inter Milan's English coach Roy Hodgson confessed to no surprise when reading of Fernandez's decision to opt out.

"We're paid to win. But, if you don't, then you're out," he said. "You have hardly any time to get it right and that pressure is very stressful".

The worst pressures are those out of the coach's control ... For example, at the moment, I have Inter players who take the field in less than tranquil frame of mind because every day they keep reading in the sports press that they will be replaced by this player or that next season.

A final, typically caustic, observation came last week from former French ace, Michel Platini.

"To be a coach at a big club, you've have got to be either mad or very hard up for money," he said.