Reported by Wang Xiaorui, all-media reporter of Sports Weekly
Oscar and Vargas have come to the team for winter training, and just last weekend, another frontcourt foreign aid of the Seaport team, Issa Caron, also boarded a flight to us. It seems that the preparation work of the Shanghai Seaport team is starting to speed up in an all-round way, and behind all this, the head coach of the first team has been initially finalized. Last week, the team has verbally notified that the new coach will officially take office in the first week of March. From the current point of view, at least at this stage, the current Henan Songshan Longmen team coach Javier Pereira is the most likely candidate for the position.
Choose Javier? To many people, this is a bit unbelievable. After all, the former currently has a contract with Henan Songshan Longmen, and, apart from poaching Eriksson from Guangzhou R&F in the early years, the selection of coaches in Haigang generally targets foreign teachers who are not in our league. However, since the full start of the coach selection work in March this year, there has not been much progress, and it has indeed stumped the management of the seaport. This never happened in the past when Villas-Boas, Pereira and Lecco were hired. Of course, a fact that cannot be ignored is that the attractiveness of the Chinese Super League to European coaches has declined significantly. Moreover, according to relevant sources, the budget that Haigang made for the new coach this time has also shrunk a lot compared to before. For example, Lecco signed a two-year contract with 2.5 million euros at the time, but the psychological price of the seaport this time is between one and two million euros.
It is also based on such harsh conditions, and Haigang has always advocated “short-term contract first”, and some well-known foreign coaches, after initial contact, soon fell short. However, considering the importance of winter training, the Seaport team decided to regroup in mid-March. As in the second half of last season, vice presidents Sun Xiang and Xi Zhikang are still in charge.
However, you can’t live without a handsome man. In fact, since late March, Haigang has fully accelerated the selection of coaches. At the beginning of this month, three candidates stood out and entered the final screening stage. The former Spanish local team coach Robert Moreno, who was exposed to the outside world, was indeed a candidate, but the two sides did not carry out further communication shortly after contact. It is reported that this is because Moreno is also being pursued by foreign teams and Ecuador teams, and he himself is also hesitant between coaching the club and the local team. In contrast, another West European coach has been in talks with Harbor the longest. However, this person is not from Spain, nor is it the legendary Oscar Garcia, but his resume is still very good. In addition to having many years of coaching experience in the five major leagues and European competitions, he has also led the team to win trophies and entered the championship and runner-up finals many times. In addition, he also has some understanding of Asian football.
It is said that with such a prominent resume, Haigang should be determined to win this game, but it is understood that due to the limitation of the annual budget, the club finally had to pass by the famous coach. This also reflects from another perspective that the Harbor Club has become more rational in its investment in today’s overall decline in the Chinese Super League market.
And after Moreno and the five major league coaches faded out one after another, the so-called one of three choices left only “Plan C”. But from the beginning to the end, this third candidate has never surfaced. It was not until about a week ago that Haigang started substantive negotiations with him. This is the current Henan Songshan Dragon Gate coach Javier Pereira. At this time, the latter is worrying about the new round of changes that the club is about to face. Due to changes in the ownership structure, Henan Songshan Longmen will take a large-scale salary cut in the new season, including the Spanish coaching staff headed by Javier.
Compared with the other two candidates, Javier is most favored by the port, thanks to his familiarity with our football. After all, at the end of 2018, he had already come to us with Cruyff Jr., and later worked as an assistant coach to the first team coach bit by bit. Of course, last season, he led the Henan team to 1 win and 1 loss to Haigang twice, which is quite impressive. Including Wu Lei’s return to the first show, although the Henan team lost 1 to 2, at the last moment, there was every chance to equalize the score.
From the current point of view, Javier has become the biggest favorite of the harbor coach. And through the negotiations a week ago, the two sides are also willing to work together. But before that, the first thing Javier needs to accomplish is to peacefully terminate the contract with Henan Songshan Longmen. However, according to people familiar with the situation, everyone in the harbor has been notified: if everything goes well, the new head coach will arrive and lead the team in the first week of March.Return to Sohu to see more
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