The odyssey is set to continue for Alex McLeish.

When his KRC Genk side beat Zulte-Waragem 3-2 last weekend it brought the curtain down on another fascinating chapter in the coaching life of the man affectionately known as "Big Eck". McLeish can count his adventures in football a bit like one of those medieval seafarers who never knew what land-mass he was going to meet next.

"Being in Belgium over this past season has taught me one thing - you are never too old or baw-heided to learn something new," said McLeish, who is about to leave his club. "It has been a tremendous experience."

The past nine months have been a coaching roller-coaster for the 56 year old. McLeish took on a club low in spirit and confidence, had to adapt to working with a sporting-director's choice of players rather than his own, and was charged with hoisting Genk up the Jupiler League, come what may.

To that end he has enjoyed both success and failure. Genk, in pretty unlucky circumstances, finished just outside the top six on goal-difference to Charleroi, and have now narrowly missed out on a Europa League play-off spot having garnered 15 points out of 18 in their round-robin group of four, again being pipped on goal difference, this time by Mechelen. "I feel I've achieved a lot with the team, especially with some of the younger players I've blooded," said McLeish. "But the fact remains we've twice been pipped on goal-difference, which brought its own disappointment."

The wider experience, he says, has been both educational and invigorating. Having won trophies with Rangers and Birmingham City, and been highly regarded when in charge of Scotland, McLeish then bit on a more bitter pill when he lasted one season at Aston Villa before being sacked. Going to Belgium offered him a chance not just to work again, but to test himself in an unfamiliar environment.

"It has been something totally new, totally different, for a British coach," he says. "Working with a sporting director has brought its challenges, but that's the way it is in Belgium and elsewhere on the continent. The sporting director is actually above you, and is in charge of bringing in players.

"It was an alien concept to me at first, as it would be for any British coach. They have a saying in Belgium, 'the head coaches come and go, they just pass through'. I said to them, 'well, I intend to buck this trend'. That was my intention.

"Basically, the sporting-director brings in the players. When I met the Genk people last August they made it plain to me how the system worked, and I was happy to go along with it. And I've had no issues with Gunter Jacob, my sporting director, here at all. I've just got on with it."

The reaction to McLeish and Genk in Belgium has been mixed, with the Scot receiving both praise and criticism. He lost his key striker, Ilombe Mboyo, for five months to injury - "It's the fecking story of my life," says McLeish - but his team, being written off plenty, continued to press for a top-six finish. The more ardent Genk fans, though, voiced criticism of the team coming up short.

"I feel I've done a pretty decent job in the circumstances," says McLeish. "When I came here last summer the club was in a poor state, the coaching staff were depressed and some of the players were at loggerheads. There was a poor team-spirit here. But I am leaving a club in good spirits, and a team which, even in adversity, has achieved a lot this season.

"We've brought in next to no new players since I arrived. The club has needed money in from players, not putting money out. So I just got to work with the squad I was presented with. I've brought through four or five teenagers in my season here and they have done pretty well.

"All things considered I regard my 50%-plus win-rate with Genk as pretty good going. It has been an amazing season for some of the younger players at the club."

The loss of Mboyo, however, causes McLeish a grim smile. With a black humour, he notes that anyone who has followed his managerial career will know of his predestined loss of key strikers just when he needed them most.

"It has been [blanked out] unbelievable," he says. "For some reason I have had numerous times when I've lost my strikers to injury. Just when I needed him, Mboyo went out injured for five months, which cost us. The other guys who came in did their best, but we were never the same without Mboyo.

"It's a recurring theme with me. When I was at Birmingham, the season we went down I went without my two principal strikers, Nikola Zigic and Obafemi Martins, after losing both to injury. To be honest the best strikers I've ever had in my career were at Rangers: guys like Ronald De Boer, Shota Arveladze and Dado Prso. Any coach wants these sort of durable guys who are there for him. That said, injuries are a part of football, of course they are."

While fighting to take his club among the elite, McLeish says he has also had a chance to study a different culture of football, with "a different mindset". The game in Belgium lives in the shadows of Holland and Germany, much as Scotland's game does with England. But there are common traits in Belgium, says McLeish, especially with the Dutch system.

"The football in Belgium has good standards. Clubs like Anderlecht and Brugge, which I've come up against, are top class. There are five or six other teams that would do well in English football. It's different over here. Genk, for example, have skills-coaches who work with our centre-halves, to make them more comfortable on the ball. There is a huge emphasis on technique. Belgian kids are brought up to manipulate the ball."

Having dipped his toe into the scene for a season, wasn't he tempted to stay on and reach for higher next season?

"Like I said, when I came here, my intention was to buck the trend of head coaches coming and going," he says. "But there are so many changes going on at the club this summer, and leaving for me is the correct thing to do.

"They are getting a new sporting-director in, and other financial guys, and it will be a new era at the club. I wasn't sure, if I stayed, if I'd face a bit of a fire-fight next season. All things considered, I've really enjoyed it, but I feel it is time for me to go."

So, where to next? McLeish has now managed seven clubs, but at 56 feels he has a load more to offer. He says he still feels in his managerial prime, but with greater experience and wisdom.

"Where next, who knows?" he says. "I'd quite like a project, maybe in England or abroad, where I am given two or three years to try to build something. I think people know what I can do. England appeals, as does being somewhere abroad again.

"You never say never, but right now I'm not thinking of coming back to Scotland to work. I'd like to work back in England, or maybe abroad. I think I can handle it, I can adapt."