As the third round of the Asian round of 36 of the World Preliminary Championship is approaching, the issue of changing the coach of the Chinese men's football team has become urgent. It is reported that the national football coach has entered the substantive negotiation stage, and there are currently two popular candidates.
Since the national football team returned to China from Doha, Qatar on January 24, the Chinese Football Association has launched a new round of national football coach selection. At the beginning of February, the Football Association organized a committee of coaches and experts to come to Beijing to discuss matters related to the national football team. This time, the Football Association hopes to select a coach with good ability and confidence to lead the team to the World Cup within the scope of the best allowed. At the moment, there are two managers who are the most likely. They are Croatian coach Ivankovic, who has coached the Iranian national team, Shandong Luneng team, and Oman national team, and former Swiss national team coach Petkovic.
Judging from their resumes, both have good national team coaching experience. Ivankovic's advantage is that he is quite familiar with both the Chinese Super League and Asian football, with a clear combination of Eastern and Western European characteristics, and is good at leading the team to play defensive counter-attacks. Petkovic's advantage is that he has coached in Europe and has had success. In addition, he is good at using the 4231 formation, focusing on the fast attack on the side and the balance of attack and defense, which is also more suitable for the national football team.
No matter which coach the Chinese Football Association chooses in the end, the time left for him to lead the team to prepare for the game is already very tight. According to the schedule of the new season of the Chinese Super League, the league will usher in a 19-day first break after the end of the second round on March 10, and this time is reserved for the national football team to prepare for the two world preliminaries on March 21 and 26. Therefore, the best time for the new coach of the national football team to take office should be before the start of the league on March 1. That way, he has time to go to the league and scout the players before building the team.