Lippi avoids a China crisis
Duesseldorf
Joshua Kimmich says Germany hope to seduce home fans with “sexy football” to brush Belarus aside today, in an attempt to boost both flagging attendance figures and their bid to qualify for the Euro 2020 finals.
Fan interest has never been so low since Joachim Loew took charge of Germany in 2006, with average attendances for home internationals dropping to a paltry 37 162 and only two thirds of the tickets for both remaining home qualifiers sold so far.
An emphatic win over Belarus in Moenchengladbach could help win back any fans still disgruntled by their woeful 2018 World Cup campaign when Germany came last in their group.
“First and foremost, we are responsible for getting people into the stadium whether we play sexy football or not,” said midfielder Kimmich in Duesseldorf.
“We have to make sure that everyone who stays at home regrets it a bit.”
With two qualifiers left, European powerhouses the Netherlands, who face Northern Ireland in Belfast today, and Germany are level at the top of Group C on 15 points with the top two teams progressing.
So far, the Dutch and Germans have only lost to each other, with Germany’s 3-2 win in Amsterdam last March avenged when the Oranje enjoyed a 4-2 victory in Hamburg in September.
The Germans will claim their Euro finals berth on Saturday with a win provided the Dutch don’t lose in Belfast, and Loew’s squad will be eager to avoid having to win their final qualifier against Northern Ireland in Frankfurt on Tuesday.
Striker Timo Werner is currently Germany’s best source of goals with the RB Leipzig striker having netted 11 goals in as many Bundesliga games this season.
“He’s on a sensational run,” acknowledged Kimmich, who added the Germans have targeted “six points” from their last two qualifiers.
Werner netted his 11th goal in 28 appearances for Germany last month when they beat Estonia 3-0 with 10-men in Tallinn after defender Emre Can was sent off with just 14 minutes gone.
After grinding out a 2-0 win in Belarus in June, Werner warned
“you can’t expect us to win 5-0 or 6-0”.
With Can suspended and Niklas Suele injured, Loew will need to reshuffle his defence, but there is a fight for midfield places behind Werner.
Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan is vying with Bayern Munich’s Kimmich and Real Madrid star Toni Kroos for a central midfield slot. –
– China are searching for a third coach this year after the football association accepted Marcello Lippi’s resignation following a damaging loss to Syria in World Cup qualifying.
A clearly infuriated Lippi (above), the 71-year-old Italian World Cup-winner, made a brief but angry appearance in front of the media after the 2-1 defeat on Thursday in Dubai.
“My pay is very high and I take all the blame. I am quitting as China coach,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
“We could beat weaker opponents like the Maldives and Guam, but when we encountered stronger teams like the Philippines and Syria, we could not play our own football.”
Lippi then abruptly left the press conference, walking out before translators had even finished interpreting what he was saying. His second spell as China coach lasted only six matches.
Hours later, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) said in a statement that it accepted Lippi’s resignation.
“We are really sorry that the unsatisfactory results disappoint all Chinese fans,” the CFA said.
“The CFA will seriously reflect, rebuild the team, and try our best in the following World Cup qualifiers.”
Syria’s victory left them comfortably atop Group A in qualifying for the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
China are five points behind in second, only above the Philippines on goal difference, putting their World Cup hopes in peril.
It has been a turbulent year for Chinese football and Lippi’s resignation is another dent to the government’s hopes of making the country a superpower in the sport.
The former Juventus and Italy boss, who was broadly popular in China, reportedly earned $25 million per year, making him one of the best-paid coaches in the world.
He first quit the post in January after taking China to the Asian Cup quarter-finals, where they lost 3-0 to Iran, and his compatriot Fabio Cannavaro took over.
But Cannavaro lasted only two matches – both 1-0 defeats – before saying that balancing the job with managing Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande was too much.
That saw Lippi return in May with the aim of taking China to the World Cup.
China languish 69th in the Fifa world rankings and have reached the World Cup only once, in 2002, when they left pointless –
Shanghai