Recently, Guangzhou City Football Club has come with heavy news, the Dutch coach Van Garst eclipsed the departure. According to Sports Weekly, this personnel change has long been brewing within the state-owned consortium and was finalized as early as a month ago.
Van Garst, the seventh manager in the history of Guangzhou City (formerly Guangzhou R&F) and the only example of an assistant coach being promoted to head coach, arrived in Guangzhou in 2020 as Van Bronckhorst's right-hand man and helped the team survive relegation. After van Bronckhorst's departure, van Garst had the perfect opportunity to lead the team on his own.
Making his debut as a first team manager last season, Van Garst managed to take Guangzhou City into title contention in the Chinese Super League and completed relegation ahead of schedule. Finishing his debut season in seventh place in the league, he earned the right to stay on.
However, it is no coincidence that Van Garst stepped down in the off-season. The club's reform process has been stalled by debt disputes between the old and new owners, with former general manager Zhang Bin returning to a coordinating role and members of the Fulham-era operations team leaving the club. The state-owned consortium is expected to take over in August, and the decision to change the manager was made by them a month ago. At that time, the team's losing streak, the Chinese Super League closed session system increased the difficulty of changing the manager. In fact, the team's losing streak was not a coaching problem for Van Garst, but rather the club's stagnant reforms and salary arrears, which led to low morale and lack of strength, and the Dutchman was only an innocent scapegoat.
Nonetheless, Guangzhou City was the starting point of Van Garst's coaching career, and even though the experience failed to be the best, he has no regrets. He said, "Overall, coaching at Guangzhou City was a wonderful experience, experiencing a different culture and learning more is priceless."
