On the occasion of the upcoming fierce confrontation between the national soccer team and Saudi Arabia, Liu Jianhong, a well-known media commentator, expressed his views on the changes on the coaching bench of the national soccer team. He said bluntly, "The situation at hand, coach Ivan once again at risk, this is undoubtedly a big challenge. Either he is not up to the task or we have to make a decisive change. It might be better to publicly announce Ivan's dismissal, and then let a team of local Chinese coaches take over to test the FA's resilience. Currently, there are three coaches who are qualified to take over on an interim basis, and they are coaches from Shanghai Harbour, Shanghai Shenhua and Shandong Taishan, which are not only good at club management, but are also capable of leading the national team."
One of the head coaches of the Shanghai Harbor team is Muscat from Australia, whose coaching talent has been widely praised by the industry. Since his arrival, the Harbor players such as Wu Lei have been transformed. Under Muscat's leadership, Shanghai Seaport is currently at the top of the Chinese Super League.
And the coach of Shanghai Shenhua is Russian Slutsky. When he first took over, Slutsky encountered a lot of skepticism, but his coaching results are stable and he is currently ranked second in the CSL. Shandong Taishan's head coach is Korean Choi Kang-hee, who is also a controversial coach. Early in the season, Choi led Taishan into the top eight of the Asian Champions League, but the team was once on a losing streak this season. However, Taesan has recently come out of the woods, winning the FA Cup, Asian Champions League and the league title.
If these three coaches could coach the Chinese men's soccer team, they would have a good idea of the strengths and levels of the league's players. However, one thing that cannot be overlooked is that our national team does not seem to accept part-time coaches. There are examples in basketball where Du Feng coached both the Guangdong men's basketball team and the Chinese men's basketball team, but he ultimately had to choose one or the other. Du Feng eventually chose the Guangdong men's basketball team. This summer, Guo Shiqiang took over as the coach of the Chinese men's basketball team, after coaching at the Guangzhou men's basketball team. If he wants to coach the national soccer team, he must first resign from the club.
