Time for a foreign coach for the Croatian football team? Some interested candidates.
Marcelo Lippi (67), who has been without a club since the end of 2014 when he left Chinese club Guangzhou, and Roberto Donadoni (52), the last coach of Parma before it went bankrupt, are some of the candidates to be the next coach of the Croatian national football team, according to Italian football websites. The Croatian Football Federation (HNS) was also contacted by Lotthar Matthaus and Christoph Daum, and, according to Novi List, Fabio Capello, legendary coach who has recently parted ways with the Russian national team, reports Index.hr on Septmember 12, 2015.
Romeo Jozak from HNS did not want to confirm this information. He said he was not allowed to name the candidates with whom he and HNS chairman Šuker will talk in the coming days. He just added that there are six candidates on the shortlist.
Italians are pushing the story that their two former national teams coaches are among the shortlisted candidates. They have also stated that the Croatian Football Federation is negotiating with Croatian coaches Ante Čačić and Nenad Gračan. Jozak announced that the new coach will be offered a contract till the end of the World Cup in Russia. Former national team coach Niko Kovač earned about 200,000 euros per year.
Lippi was the world champion with Italy in 2006. He has coached a number of Italian clubs. The turning point was Napoli which qualified for the UEFA Cup, which was the first significant success for the club since Maradona’s time. Lippi then went to Juventus with whom he won three championship titles in Italy and has played in three finals of the Champions League. He moved briefly to Inter, and then returned to Juventus where he took two more domestic titles and lost another Champions League final.
He got his chance as the coach of the Italian national team in 2004 after Giovanni Trapattoni got fired after the poor performance at the European Championship. In 2006, Lippi’s Italy became world champions. After the World Cup in Germany, he left the Italian national team, which he again took over two years later. However, he was not successful in South Africa – Italy ended the World Cup at the bottom of its group, behind Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia.
From May 2012 to November 2014, Lippi coached Guangzhou in China, but then announced his retirement from coaching. According to some, Lippi was earning as much as ten million euros a year in China.
Roberto Donadoni is a legendary footballer of Milan, for which he played more than 300 times. He has been the coach in Lecce, Livorno, Genoa, Napoli, Cagliari, Parma and the Italian national team. He was fired after the Italians lost to Spain, which later became European champions. His last coaching job was in Parma, which declared bankruptcy last year. A year earlier, he brought Parma to the sixth place in the Serie A, but the club did not play in the Europa League because they did not get the UEFA license.
