China News Service, Tianjin, March 8th: Can the new men's football coach Ivankovic give fans a "meeting gift"?
China News Service reporter Hao Lingyu
"China's investment and true strength in football are not fully reflected in results. I believe the Chinese team is fully capable of occupying a place in Asia." On the 8th, the Chinese National Men's Football Team held a press conference in Tianjin. New coach Ivanko Vicki said at the meeting.
Since the Chinese men's football team was eliminated from the group in the Asian Cup in Qatar without scoring a single goal and without winning a game, the former head coach Jankovic resigned sadly, and Croatian Ivankovic took over as coach of the national football team.
From the official announcement of his appointment on February 24 to leading the team to participate in the World Cup qualifiers on March 21, the outside world paid attention to whether the coach, who had just celebrated his 70th birthday, could give fans a "meeting gift" in a short time.
The next two opponents of the Chinese men's football team in the World Cup preliminaries are the Singapore men's football team, which is a relatively weak team in the same group of opponents and suffered defeats against the Thai men's football team and the South Korean men's football team.
The outside world expects that Ivankovic, who has confidence in the future of the Chinese men's football team, will lead the team to a complete victory in the two home and away matches against the Singapore men's football team in March, making it more likely to advance to the top 18 of the World Preliminaries.
At the press conference on the 8th, Ivankovic kept taking notes with a pen between questions from the media.
As the new head coach, he has started busy preparations for coaching since he took office.
On February 25, Ivankovic watched the "city derby" between Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai Haigang.
On March 6, he appeared at the AFC Champions League match between Shandong Taishan and Yokohama Marinos.
At the press conference, Ivankovic announced that he will go to Jinan this weekend to watch the Chinese Super League "Beijing-Lujia Battle".
"I'm very happy that the Chinese players have no discipline problems, but I also know that it takes a lot of effort to adapt the national football team to new tactics and new requirements in a short period of time." Ivankovic expressed at the press conference that after taking over the Chinese men's football team The urgency of preparation time.
In addition to the time issue, Ivankovic is also concerned about the lack of offensiveness of the Chinese men's football team on the field.
In the Asian Cup in Qatar, the Chinese men's football team is in a sluggish state. The average number of shots per game, the number of shots on target, the number of consecutive passes, and the number of corner kicks are all at the lower end of the participating teams.
Ivankovic said that coaching in China will require players to go all out to attack their opponents and establish a winning mentality.
"I hope to see passionate and adventurous tactics on the field."
In order to discover potential players, Ivankovic plans to select several new players to join the roster in each training camp of the Chinese men's football team to observe and judge whether they can adapt to the training and level of the national team.
For the Chinese men's football team, whose average age in the Asian Cup is close to 30 years old, Ivankovic's strategy of continuing to introduce new players may be an opportunity to start player replacement.
In addition to the "meeting ceremony", people have more expectations for the 70-year-old coach.
From the 2010 season to the 2011 season, Ivankovic coached the Shandong Taishan team in the Chinese Super League and led the team to win the 2010 Chinese Super League championship.
This time he became the head coach of the Chinese men's football team, which marked his return to Chinese football after 13 years.
His understanding of Chinese football will help him coach the Chinese men's football team.
"Asian football has indeed made great progress now, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc., so many teams have improved, and we must keep up." Ivankovic said.
(over)