Chinese Football Association crosses out famous candidates, chooses strange coach to lead national team

TPO - On November 5, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) announced the decision to appoint the national team head coach. Several foreign candidates who met the application requirements were surprisingly not selected. Instead, they put their trust in an unknown name from within the country, Mr. Shao Jiayi.

New coach of China national team, Shao Jiayi

Previously, CFA had launched a massive recruitment campaign for coaches from many regions. Carlos Queiroz, Roberto Mancini or former Man City assistant coach, Juan Carlos Osorio, were nominated. These coaches are all experienced and have proven talent.

China News wrote: "According to the selection notice released by the Chinese Football Association in September, the new head coach of the national team must meet the following conditions: Have experience coaching in the final qualifying round or finals of tournaments organized by FIFA, or have experience as a head coach in high-level tournaments in Europe and Asia. The goal and mission of the new national team coach is to lead China to qualify for the 2030 World Cup."

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In terms of requirements, Carlos Queiroz, Roberto Mancini and Juan Carlos Osorio all meet the requirements. All three have participated in at least one World Cup or EURO finals. Mancini even won EURO 2020. However, the CFA has included a clause that candidates must be "under 60 years old".

That is why Carlos Queiroz, Roberto Mancini and Juan Carlos Osorio were all eliminated. Then the CFA chose someone who met the age requirement but did not have much professional prestige. The person chosen was Shao Jiayi, a former national player of the billion-people country.

During his playing career, Shao Jiayi played in Germany for 5 seasons in the Bundesliga. The teams he played for included 1860 Munich, Energie Cottbus and MSV Duisburg. He retired in 2015 and moved into coaching.

He was an assistant coach at the U19 and Chinese national teams before becoming the "captain" of Qingdao FC. Overall, Shao Jiayi's coaching CV is very modest. He is far behind Li Tie or Li Xiaopeng, the two most recent domestic coaches to have led the Chinese national team.

His acceptance to become head coach is expected to rebuild the national team, but is facing great doubt from fans. Because almost all of them clearly expressed disappointment and frustration when CFA appointed a coach with little reputation like Shao Jiayi.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/ldbd-trung-quoc-gach-ten-cac-ung-vien-ten-tuoi-chon-hlv-la-dan-dat-doi-tuyen-quoc-gia-post1793782.tpo