In early spring, Portuguese manager Queiroz quietly said goodbye to Iran and embarked on a journey to Doha. His goal is clear - after reaching a meeting with the Qatar Football Association (QFA), he will usher in his 70th birthday next month and officially take charge of the Qatar team. Queiroz's involvement with Qatar undoubtedly bodes ill for the CFA. A veteran of Asian soccer, he was a coveted coaching candidate for the national soccer team, but ultimately chose to remain an enemy of Chinese soccer.
Queiroz is not the only disappointment on the road to selecting the national soccer team. Former South Korean coach Paulo Bento, who led Jiangsu Suning to the top of the Chinese Super League, Ola Royo, also a favorite in the eyes of the CFA, but also suffered the same promotion problems. In fact, Chinese soccer is in the most difficult period. In the context of the decline of the overall strength of the national football team, the CFA can come up with what kind of chips, to attract those in Asia and even the world's renowned coaches, brave to take over this "hot potato"?
Despite the fact that the national football team is expected to travel to New Zealand for a training session next month, the CFA is likely to continue to struggle to find the ideal new manager when the team returns. In the face of such a predicament, the FA can only rely on existing resources to cope with, from all points of view, Li Xiaopeng seems to be should be given the opportunity to continue to coach the national team.
Yu Li revealed that although the national football team in the public eye "invisible" nearly a year, but the Football Association did not announce the change of coaches, which means that Li Xiaopeng, who took office in November last year, is still the team's Indian head coach. Although in the battle of love, Li Xiaopeng's record is not ideal, only 1 draw and 3 losses, including an embarrassing loss against Vietnam, but what he can do during his reign is really limited. With the national soccer team missing out on the World Cup in Qatar at the time, no one was able to deliver better results. Recently, Li, who has also disappeared for a long time, has privately revealed his willingness to continue coaching - after all, his time in charge in the last 12 games was too short to let go.
In addition to Li Xiaopeng, the CFA has two ways to go: one is to enable the Asian Games team coach Yang Kovic; the second is to let Yang Kovic and Li Xiaopeng jointly coached the national team. However, undoubtedly, let Li Xiaopeng continue to coach is the most sensible choice.
Since 2018, Serbian Jankovic has been active in the public eye and in January 2019 he officially took charge of the 1999-2000 age group men's soccer team. Last July, he led the Chinese men's soccer team to the East Asian Cup, with a record of 0-3 loss to South Korea, 0-0 draw with Japan, and 1-0 defeat to Hong Kong, China. Now, the team he coaches has been renamed the Asian Games team, and his main task is to lead the team to achieve good results at the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September.
Jankovic has had few highlights in his last three years in charge, which 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, he has been a youth coach for a long time and lacks experience in coaching adult teams, so it is doubtful whether he can be qualified to be the head coach of the national team. Even if we put aside his ability, his responsibility as the coach of the two teams at this time also seems to be out of place. Once 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, the two teams are not beneficial. Chinese soccer has long tasted such bitter fruit.
Currently, the Asian Games team has assembled in Foshan, Guangdong Province, and will continue to train until the 14th of this month, which makes it difficult for Yankovic to adjust his form before the start of the national football team's training next month. What's more, the CFA's direction of hiring a new foreign coach to coach the national soccer team has not changed. There is still a chance for the national soccer team to find a suitable candidate before the world preliminaries in November. If Jankovic is activated, it means that he will organize the national football team's training and preparation for the world qualifying tournament within a few weeks after the Asian Games assignment, which is more likely to result in more advantages than disadvantages.
As for the idea of joint coaching between Li Xiaopeng and Jankovic, this is certainly a classic example of insufficient lessons learned. Chinese soccer paid a heavy price for this. in 2007, as an Olympic coach, Duikovic was appointed by the CFA as the head coach of the national team, with Furado serving as executive coach for a few months, the first time in the history of the Chinese national team that the joint coaching model was tried. But in the end, the national soccer team was eliminated on the eve of the 2010 World Cup, and the Olympic team ran into a lot of trouble when Duikovic was fired 20 days before the start of the Games. Although Dujkovic and Frado had a cordial relationship, they were ultimately unable to deal with the internal power and responsibility relationship, and I am afraid that the joint coaching of Li Xiaopeng and Jankovic will be difficult to avoid similar problems.
Giving Li more time and space to fully demonstrate his tactical philosophy is undoubtedly the most effective option for the FA, and probably the only reasonable path.
