After missing world-class coaches such as Queiroz and Petkovic, the Chinese Football Association finally retreated to the second place and reached a sense of cooperation with the 69-year-old Ivankovic to lead the national football team to start a new journey. Although Ivankovic is not the world's top head coach, he is no stranger to Chinese football and even Asian football, as a former head coach of the Chinese Super League, Ivankovic has led Shandong Luneng to win the league championship, even if he was the head coach of Oman before, he also has a resume of leading the team to defeat the Asian powerhouse Japan.
Coaching the Chinese men's national football team is a challenge for Ivankovic, and it is also an opportunity that cannot be found. The challenge is that the overall level of the national football team is not high today, coupled with the poor record in recent years, the team has frequent changes of coaches, which will have an invisible pressure on the new coach Ivankovic at all times, and the opportunity is that Oman led by Ivankovic also bid farewell to the World Cup with a record of 2 draws and 1 loss, which is for him, as long as he can lead the national football team to the top 18 of the world preliminary tournament or even further, then his coaching ability will be recognized again, and his personal value will also increase.
In fact, the Chinese men's football team in the world preliminary round of 36 grouping is still quite optimistic, in addition to South Korea, the Chinese men's football team has the strength to win against Thailand and Singapore men's football team, especially in the first round of the duel to defeat Thailand, even if China is currently ranked third in the group with a goal difference, it still occupies the initiative to qualify. In the next game against the Singapore men's football team on March 21, Ivankovic led the national football team to make a good start, after all, considering the overall strength of Singapore, coupled with the 9 encounters between the two sides in the past team history, the Chinese men's football team maintained an unbeaten record of 7 wins and 2 draws, so even if the national football team drew with the opponent, they also held the opportunity to qualify from the group, but whether it was for the team or Ivankovic, they urgently needed a victory to prove themselves.
In addition, many fans expressed concern about the decision of the Football Association to change the coach temporarily, after all, the big tournament is coming, and the team coaches and players need time to run in, but the fans' worries are unnecessary. First of all, with Jankovic's performance in the Asian Cup, there is no hope, the so-called long pain is better than short pain, and the change of coach has become an inevitable result. The second is that Ivankovic's coaching ability is definitely stronger than Jankovic, he has coached different countries, and knows Chinese football and Asian football very well, he is good at leading weak teams to create miracles, 4231 formation is his forte, well grasp the balance of attack and defense on the side, leading Oman to defeat the Japanese men's football team is the best proof, so, Ivankovic will only be more suitable for the national football team than Jankovic.
But then again, now less than a month away from the start of the World Preliminary Tournament against Singapore, for Ivankovic, time may be the biggest challenge, first he only has less than 2 weeks to select, and then put into the intense training camp, fortunately, Ivankovic is very professional, he chose to arrive in China a week early, I believe that in terms of lineup, there are already some ideas.