Earlier this month, the famous Portuguese coach Queiroz just released a farewell document to Iran and then quietly arrived in Doha. His purpose was very clear - after face-to-face negotiations with the Qatar Football Association (QFA), he will become the new coach of Qatar at the age of 70 next month. The story of Queiroz and Qatar is certainly not good news for the Chinese Football Association. After all, the famous coach, who has been coaching in Asian soccer for many years, met all the criteria set by the CFA for selecting a coach for the national soccer team, but the Portuguese ultimately chose to remain an opponent of the Chinese team.
Queiroz is not the lone example of an international soccer team that has encountered setbacks on the way to selecting a manager. Former South Korean manager Paulo Bento, Ola Royo, who once led Jiangsu Suning to the top of the Chinese Super League, are also candidates favored by the CFA, but are also difficult to promote. In fact, it is not difficult to understand that Chinese soccer is in the most difficult period. In the next session of the overall strength of the national football team is not good, the CFA has what capital to let these coaches who have been successful in Asia and even the world are willing to take the risk to take over this "mess".
Although the national soccer team still has time to train in New Zealand next month, it is likely that the Chinese Football Association will still be unable to find a suitable new coach when the team returns. Faced with this unhelpful reality, the soccer association can only solve the current problem through its existing resources, and no matter which way you look at it, Li should have the opportunity to continue coaching the national soccer team.
Although the national soccer team has "disappeared" from public view for nearly a year, the Chinese Football Association has never announced a change in the national soccer coach, which means that Li Xiaopeng, who will be the national soccer coach in November 2021, is still the team's Indian coach, Yuli said. In terms of love, Li Xiaopeng led the team to a poor performance with only one draw and three defeats, including an embarrassing loss to Vietnam, but what he was able to do when he took over was quite limited. With the national soccer team sure to miss the World Cup in Qatar at the time, no one could have delivered a better result. Just recently, Li, who also disappeared for a long period of time, privately expressed the idea of continuing to coach the national soccer team, after all, it was too short a time to coach the team in the last 12 matches, which made him very "reluctant".
In addition to letting Li Xiaopeng continue to coach the national soccer team, the Chinese Football Association has two other options: one is to let the coach of the Asian Games team, Yang Kovic, take over; the other is to let Yang Kovic and Li Xiaopeng jointly coach the national soccer team. But there is no doubt that letting Li Xiaopeng continue to coach is the best choice.
Serbian Jankovic has been in the public eye since 2018 and in January 2019 officially became the men's soccer coach for the 1999-2000 age group. Last July, Jankovic led China's men's soccer selection team to the East Asian Cup, losing 0-3 to South Korea, drawing 0-0 with Japan, and defeating Hong Kong, China 1-0. Currently, the team coached by Jankovic has been renamed the Asian Games team, and his main task is naturally to lead the team to achieve good results in the Hangzhou Asian Games, which will open in September.
Jankovic hasn't had much to show for his coaching experience over the past three years, which of course has a lot to do with the fact that the team has been virtually unable to participate in international matches due to the epidemic. In addition, the Serbian has been a youth coach for a long time and lacks experience in coaching adult teams, so there is a big doubt whether he can be competent in the national team in one step. Even if we put aside the ability to talk about, Jankovic in such a time to shoulder the responsibility of the coach of the two teams is also very untimely. Once as the coach of the national football team, will certainly affect the preparation of the Asian Games team; or, the Asian Games players will be prematurely promoted to the national football team, in order to "kill two birds with one stone", but ultimately will not have a positive impact on the two teams. Chinese soccer has long tasted such a loss.
The Asian Games team has now assembled in Foshan, Guangdong Province and will train until the 14th of this month, making it very unrealistic for Jankovic to consider the upcoming training schedule for the national soccer team next month. What's more, the CFA's general direction of hiring a new foreign coach to coach the national soccer team remains unchanged. There is still a chance for the national soccer team to find a suitable candidate before they compete in the next world qualifying tournament in November. If Jankovic is used, it would mean that the Serbian would organize the national football team's training and participation in the world qualifiers a few weeks after the Asian Games assignment. This arrangement is more likely to result in more gains than losses.
As for the idea of joint coaching between Li and Jankovic, this is a classic example of unwillingness to learn lessons. Chinese soccer paid a heavy price for this joint coaching model. in 2007, as the Olympic coach, Dujkovic was appointed by the CFA as the head coach of the national team, and Furado taught national soccer for a few months-Petrovic was changed to executive coach, which was the first time in the history of China's national team that a joint coaching model was used. But in the end, the Chicken Hair national team was eliminated two years before the start of the 2010 World Cup, and the Olympic team ran into so much trouble that Duikovic was fired under fire 20 days before the start of the Beijing Olympics. Duikovic and Petrovic had a great personal relationship and ultimately couldn't handle the internal power and responsibility relationships, not to mention Li and Jankovic, or a hybrid combination of one Chinese and one foreigner.
Giving Li more time and space to fully embody his tactical philosophy in the national soccer team is undoubtedly the most effective option for the CFA, and probably the only reasonable one.
