CHINA WOMEN NAME AUSTRALIAN MANAGER

China have charged Ante Milicic with turning around the fortunes of their women’s national team, naming the 50-year-old Australian as successor to Shui Qingxia over the weekend.

Milicic takes over a squad that slumped out of last year’s Women’s World Cup in the group stage with one win and two losses, and missed out on qualification for the Paris Olympics.

Shui was sacked because of the failure to qualify for the Olympics last November, less than two years after she had led the Steel Roses to a ninth Women’s Asian Cup title.

“To prepare for the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup and 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup, the CFA decided, following the assessment of experts, to hire Ante Milicic as the new head coach of China’s women’s national team,” the Chinese Football Association said in a statement.

Previously head coach of the Matildas and most recently in charge of men’s A-League club Macarthur, Milicic also worked as an assistant to Ange Postecoglou when the now Tottenham Hotspur manager was coach of the Australian men’s national team.

He left Macarthur in 2022 when he spoke openly about the pressures of top-level management. “I can’t give that commitment to the club and this group of players when there’s nothing in me,” he said at the time.

Milicic is China women’s first foreign coach since Iceland’s Sigudour Eyjolfsson left in 2018, and his main focus will be on preparing the squad for their Asian Cup title defence in Australia in 2026.

The Steel Roses reached the final of both the Women’s World Cup and Olympic tournament in their heyday in the 1990s, but are currently 19th in the Fifa rankings.

China will help the Matildas prepare for their Olympic campaign with friendlies against the Australian women’s team in Adelaide later this month and Sydney in early June.