Twelve months ago, he was Southampton Under-21s Head Coach and completing his UEFA A-Licence with the Scottish FA on the pitch at Oriam.
Fast forward exact a year, Calum McFarlane is now preparing to lead a team out at Wembley in English football’s showpiece game.
It may seem like a meteoric rise to some, but for the Chelsea interim head coach, it will be the culmination of two decades of honing his craft, at numerous different levels both home and abroad.
The 40-year-old – whose parents are both from Scotland – joined Chelsea’s academy last summer and he presided over two games in charge of the Blues earlier in the season before recently been re-installed as interim boss.
In his first game back in the role, he guided Chelsea into the FA Cup Final with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Leeds United at Wembley.
Reflecting on his coaching career to date, McFarlane said: “I'm really proud of my journey. It's very unique, I think. Most people who get to the position of being an academy coach, they would have spent 15 to 20 years working in academy football but my route was a little bit different.
“I started working at development centres at Crystal Palace before moving into the academy there. I then had an opportunity to go to Tromso in Norway and manage their youth team and their reserve sides over a three-year period. I got pretty home sick at the time. I was only young.
“I just wanted to come home and I ended up coming back and working for a charity that had a football programme that helped players who had been released from professional clubs.
“Alongside that, they had a non-league club that they represented and used it as a platform to get 16, 17 and 18-year-olds back into professional football. I worked in non-league and then I had an opportunity to go into Manchester City and from there I went to Southampton and, now, Chelsea.
“I think it's quite a unique route, but it's also helped me and prepared me in lots of different ways.”
It was during his time on the South coast at Southampton where McFarlane came across Andy Goldie, the Saints’ Academy Director who was previously spent time as the Head Coach in the Scottish FA JD Performance School at Braidhurst. It was his recommendation, along with his family connections, and the fact he was currently midway through a separate course with the English FA, that saw McFarlane head north to complete his A-Licence.
The Chelsea boss enjoyed the mixed range of backgrounds of the candidates within the course, and is still in touch with a number of his peers, including St Mirren interim boss Craig McLeish.
He added: “My academy manager at Southampton was Andy Goldie, who'd worked in Scotland before, so he was complimentary about the set-up.
“All my family are from Scotland too. I've spent all my holidays in Scotland, I'm actually the only one in England. My mum and dad moved to England when they were young, so I was born in London but they moved back 10 years ago.
“I did two blocks online and then two blocks of practical learning in Edinburgh.
“I quite enjoyed how varied the experience was from the candidates. For example, if you're on an A-Licence in England, it's generally age group coaches at professional clubs, whereas I actually really thought it was a real positive how varied the different levels, age groups and formats the candidates were all working in.
“It's very inclusive, and everyone deserves to be educated. I really enjoyed that part of it. There were people from all over the world as well, which was good.
“It was different to courses I had experienced before, but in a positive way. The tutors were helpful and it was a great experience.
“I was on it the year before and I actually had a young child, so I had to move it to the following year and the Scottish FA were very accommodating.
“I got on well with a lot of people on the course as well. Craig McLeish is someone that I still speak to now. He's interim at St Mirren, so we're kind of in a similar boat.
“I still speak to Stephen McGinn every now and again as well. All the people were great on the course, to be honest.”
Chelsea face a tough test against holders Manchester City in the FA Cup Final but McFarlane can take positives from the performance his side put in to earn a 1-1 draw in Manchester in his first game in interim charge at the beginning of the year.
Chelsea have endured an up and down season but they have lifted the FA Cup on eight occasions before, and this current team have big game experience, as exhibited in their FIFA Club World Cup triumph last summer.
The Blues suffered a disappointing defeat to Nottingham Forest last Monday but bounced back with a strong showing in a draw at Anfield against Liverpool on Saturday to take some momentum into the game.
While a victory on Saturday would cap a remarkable personal journey, McFarlane is only focused on what it would mean for the team, with European qualification also confirmed with a victory.
“Because you're just so in the moment, you don't notice the crowd, you don't take it all in, you're just focused on that 90-minute game,” he said.
“For example, in the Semi-Final, I think afterwards you reflect on it and even now you look back and it's amazing experience, stuff that you dream of when you think about being a coach. But in the moment there's so much going on, you don't really get to take it in.
“It's just about day-to-day, session-to-session, trying to get every little bit right to give yourself the best chance for the team to perform.
“We obviously got a much better performance on Saturday, there were lots of positives and it was really important to get that performance. Hopefully we can now feel like the Nottingham Forest game is just a one-off.
“To win, personally it would be amazing, but I am more thinking about what it would mean to the team and the supporters, and it would obviously guarantee us European football too so there’s a lot to play for and hopefully we can put in a performance and do ourselves justice.”