On February 28, Ivankovic ushered in his 70th birthday, and on this day, he received an unexpected "congratulatory gift" - to become the head coach of the Chinese men's football team. However, for the CFA, since the moment of signing Ivan, a doomed to failure of the "gamble" has quietly unfolded.
Chen Xuyuan's hasty decision to boldly activate Jankovic
Ivan's professional resume is far more illustrious than that of his predecessor Jankovic. The latter has coached the U21 National Youth, Red Star Belgrade and Standard Liege in Serbia, among others.In 2018, he stepped into Chinese football, starting out as the head coach of the U19 Yellow team before taking over as head coach of the U20 National Youth team in 2019 and becoming the head coach of the U23 Asian Games team in 2022.
After leaving his post, Jankovic temporarily acted as the national football selection team to fight in the 2022 East Asian Cup, and eventually ranked third with one win, one draw, one loss and four points, a fair performance. But at that time, the FA wanted to hire a more famous foreign coach, had contact with Paulo Bento, Queiroz, Ola Royo and so on, but were rejected.
Eventually, in February 2023, Chen Xuyuan chose Yang Kovic. On the one hand, the FA had limited funds and Yang Kovic's salary requirements were not high; on the other hand, he was familiar with the Hangzhou Asian Games and the national soccer team in terms of competing for international player resources. In addition to the well-known reasons, it is not easy to bring in coaches from abroad, so Yang Kovic became the FA's choice of no choice, hastily appointed.
However, the warm-up matches with Malaysia, Syria and Uzbekistan have shown that Jankovic's coaching ability has been inadequate. After the opening of the country, the Football Association should have considered replacing the coach, but the termination of the contract in the middle of the contract need to pay liquidated damages. Coupled with Chen Xuyuan's investigation, no one made a decision. Song Kai took office in October, only one month before the 36-team tournament against Thailand, it is too late to change the coach.
And so, from the 36 to the Asian Cup, there were delays and delays. As of now, everyone has a good idea of Jankovic's ability. Before the Asian Cup, the FA should have been ready to let him go. As a result, the FA set the goal of reaching the quarterfinals instead! This is clearly an understanding of the national soccer team, Jankovic and his opponents.
However, the national soccer team won 0 matches and scored 0 goals in the group stage, and went straight out of the competition, and also created the worst result in the team's history. It was only then that the FA hastily remembered to change the coach without having to pay liquidated damages. However, the battle resumed in the 36-team tournament in March, and there was a Chinese New Year holiday in the middle of the tournament, leaving them little time, so another hasty choice was born.
It's Songkai's turn to gamble, and Ivan takes over.
Is Ivankovic, 70, a suitable choice? He has the advantage of being familiar with Asian soccer, having led Oman to remarkable progress. He is certainly more capable than Jankovic.
However, he has been away from Shandong Taishan for more than a decade and is not familiar with Chinese soccer. From the time he left the Chinese Super League to go to Oman, he has twice been sacked after coaching five times, and has not particularly distinguished himself in terms of technical and tactical construction and field command.
First of all, Ivan is older, behind the world trend, difficult to bring qualitative changes to the national football team, difficult to lead the team for a long time, destined to be another temporary choice.
In fact, we can see from the contract that the FA is worried that Ivan will become the next Jankovic. Although the two sides signed a three-year contract, there is a clause that he will be dismissed if he doesn't make it out of the 36-team tournament. This is undoubtedly a short-sighted move: if the FA has really investigated well, trust him fully and understand that four games are not enough for him to build a new national football team; if you haven't investigated well and don't trust him, don't invite Ivan.
The harsh reality is that even if the World Cup expands Asia's 8.5 slots, it will be difficult to get a World Cup ticket even if the national soccer team makes it to the top 18. The FIFA ranking of 13th in Asia is a reflection of strength. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before Ivankovic is dropped and the FA will have to get busy finding a new coach for the national soccer team.
Mistake after mistake, does the FA not understand the problem?
In fact, the FA clearly has better options, especially in the Chinese Super League. For example, Zhejiang's Jiao Di and Chengdu Rongcheng's Xu Zhengyuan. In particular, Qiao Di, the head coach of Zhejiang, comes from Barcelona's La Masia youth training. He led Barcelona U19 to win the youth championship, adhering to the tactical philosophy of pass-and-control soccer and emphasizing the development of young players. He is a head coach in line with modern soccer trends, highly acclaimed in his circle, and perfect for leading the lowly national football team from scratch.
If the FA had been interested for a long time, they wouldn't have had to wait until the start of the new season to dig around corners. You could have talked about it after last season or even had him lead the team in the Asian Cup. It can't be worse than Jankovic with 0 wins and 0 goals, can it?
If the Football Association just want to achieve results in a short period of time, then Shandong Taishan's Cui Kangxi is undoubtedly the most ideal candidate, his coaching ability is definitely the top three Asian coaches. Of course, whether Shandong Taishan is willing to release, Cui Kangxi is willing to lead the national soccer team is another matter.
In fact, the FA has been going through a cycle of "changing coaches - trusting at first - poor performance due to poor international player ability - high-level intervention - increasingly poor performance by outsiders in charge of insiders - coaches out of control and players not contributing to the work - changing coaches again". This cycle can not even be solved by Lippi, and Ivan can not be solved.
Now there is a heavenly opportunity. The FA should have used this anti-corruption storm, leadership change, and the Asian Cup as an opportunity to appoint coaches such as Jordy and Xu Zhengyuan and give them enough time and trust to start from scratch. Unfortunately, I missed this opportunity and wasted my time.
In the final analysis, the Asian Cup loss is not bad enough ah, the Football Association, even if the change of leadership, still do not realize the core of the problem.
