Lippi appointed as new China manager
>> BEIJING: World Cup winning manager Marcello Lippi has been named as the head coach of China’s national team, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) said on its website yesterday.
The 68-year-old, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006, enjoyed a successful three-year spell with Guangzhou Evergrande, winning the Chinese League title three times and the AFC Champions League in 2013.
Lippi replaces Gao Hongbo, who resigned earlier this month after a 2-0 defeat in Uzbekistan dealt a further blow to the country’s slim hopes of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
Sitting a lowly 78th in Fifa’s rankings, China have claimed just one point from four games and dropped to bottom place in a Group A which includes Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Syria and Qatar.
Lippi, who steered Italy to their fourth and most recent World Cup triumph in 2006, is not new to working in China.
Often a source of national embarrassment, improving the level of football at club and national level has been one of the priorities of China President Xi Jinping.
Even before taking office, Xi underlined his ambitions for Chinese football in 2011: to qualify for the World Cup, to host the event and to one day win it.
China have qualified only once for the World Cup, quietly departing the 2002 edition without scoring a goal.
Last year officials declared football a compulsory part of the national curriculum, with pledges to open 20,000 football-themed schools by 2017 with the aim of producing more than 100,000 players.
There has also been a splurge of Chinese investment in some of Europe’s top clubs — Inter Milan, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Espanyol and Atletico Madrid to name but a few — and some of the sport’s top stars have been lured to China.