BFF unveils new football coach Ilievski
Bangladesh Football Federation president Kazi Salahuddin on Saturday refused to give any guarantee that the new Bangladesh coach Nikola Ilievski will get more than 30 working days during his one-year tenure.
Ilievski was formally unveiled as Bangladesh coach for the next one year putting an end to a drama that unfolded with the departure of Croatian coach Robert Rubcic earlier this month.
One of the major complaints of Rubcic was his apparent lack of work with the coach spending barely a month in the field with his charges during his 10-month stay in Bangladesh.
‘No international coach gets his team for more than one month. This is a worldwide practice,’ Salahuddin pointed out at a press conference shortly after signing an agreement with Ilievski.
‘It is very natural that a player will be involved with their club activities round the year and the national coach will travel to the grounds to watch their games most of the time,’ he said.
‘Look at Capello. He only watches the Premiership matches and gets his team for maximum one week before any international engagement,’ Salahuddin said referring to England’s Italian national coach [Fabio] Capello.
Badal Roy, chairman of the national team management committee, however, promised to keep him busy with the AFC Under-19 Championship and SAFF Championship, scheduled to be held in October and December respectively.
New coach Ilievski, however, indicated that his first priority is now to overcome Pakistan in the World Cup qualifiers and despite his late arrival the coach sounded confident.
Ilievski has got some idea about Bangladesh football when he watched the Mohammedan-Abahani match on Friday. He was shown the video of Pakistan team’s games in the 2009 SAFF championship to get an idea about the opponents.
‘Pakistan might have a bit better ball possession since they know the way of holding the ball,’ said Ilievski.
‘I have noticed a technical fault in the style of Bangladesh football while I was watching Friday’s match. The distance between two players was too long and as a result they lose their ball possession easily,’ Ilievski added.
Ilievski, however, did not have the chance to watch any games of newly crowned champions Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club, who have maximum national players at their disposal.
He will have to depend mostly on the BFF officials to form his team, though the coach made it clear that he does not want to rely completely on them.
He requested the journalists to give him a team-sheet each so that he can identify the most common names.
‘I don’t know who is the best journalist here but will come to know after some time. Similarly I will need some time to know the players and their level,’ said Ilievski.
Ilievski went to the BKSP after the match to meet with the players, 13 of whom reported to interim coach Syed Golam Jilani on Friday.
-With New Age input
