BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Football Association (CFA) officially announced yesterday that Croatian Ivankovic will be the new head coach of the Chinese men's soccer team.
Today, Ivankovic posted a poster of the Chinese coach on his personal social media account, which reads: New big challenge (新的巨大挑战).
Branko Ivanković is a UEFA professional coach. He has coached Hannover 96 (Germany), Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), the Iranian men's national soccer team, the Omani men's national soccer team, etc. In 2010, Ivanković led Shandong Luneng Taishan to the Chinese Super League title.
According to the plan, Ivankovic will watch the Super Cup "Shanghai Derby" in Shanghai on February 25 and return to Croatia the same evening to renew his Chinese visa. He is expected to return to China as early as the beginning of March and then go to the Chinese Super League. Four Croatian assistants, including assistant Mario Tokizi, help Ivan coach the national soccer team. In addition, Zhang Yu, the interpreter for former Shenhua and 1989 Croatia coach Blažević, will serve as Ivanković's full-time interpreter during his tenure with the national soccer team.
Since there are only about half a month before the national soccer team re-centers in early March, it is impossible for Ivankovic to independently complete the investigation of all players in such a short period of time. Therefore, the new national soccer training squad will largely require recommendations from the Chinese coaching team, and the specific candidates may not be too different from the Asian Cup.
