At the invitation of the Australian Football Association, the Chinese women's football team will play two international friendly matches with the Australian women's football team in Adelaide and Sydney, Australia on May 31 and June 3.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned that among the more than 40 coaches who signed up to participate in the selection of the new coach of the Chinese women's football team, a total of 9 foreign candidate coaches were qualified for the interview of the expert evaluation group of the Chinese women's football team of the Chinese Football Association, and 3 of them stood out and entered the final candidate camp of the new coach of the Chinese women's football team. They are two former Australian women's football coaches, Stasic and Milicic, and Nils Nelson, the current Danish technical director of Manchester City women's football in the Premier League. After strictly implementing the selection procedures, the Chinese Football Association finally confirmed the selection of the 50-year-old Milicic, and the association also announced the news through official channels on the 11th.
Milicic
At the beginning of November last year, the Chinese women's football team lost the Paris Olympic preliminaries, thus facing the embarrassing situation of having no major tournament to play for more than two years. After careful consideration, the Chinese Football Association decided not to renew the appointment of Shui Qingxia, the then coach of the Chinese women's football team. Considering the important work of selecting the coach of the Chinese women's football team, the Chinese Football Association temporarily "borrowed" Wang Jun, then the coach of the Chinese U20 women's football team, in December last year, as the leader of the interim coaching staff of the Chinese women's football team, to lead the Chinese women's football team to the United States to participate in two international A-level warm-up matches with the American women's football team. After that, Wang Jun returned to the coaching position of the Chinese U20 women's football team, focusing on the preparation of the U20 Women's Asian Cup. As a result, the Chinese Football Association quietly launched the selection and recruitment of the new coach of the Chinese women's football team.
On March 19 this year, the Chinese Football Association issued an announcement on the selection of the Chinese women's football team through official channels, requiring coaches who intend to sign up for the competition to complete the registration within two weeks after the notice is issued. A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned that the Chinese women's football team is very attractive. By the deadline for registration, more than 40 coaches had sent the registration form to the Chinese Football Association through various channels. It is worth noting that among the more than 40 registered coaches, only one is a local coach.
In order to ensure the scientificity, professionalism, fairness and impartiality of the selection and recruitment work, the Chinese Football Association specially organized a coach selection expert review group composed of members of local football celebrities. After the preliminary screening of the coach selection working group, 9 foreign candidate coaches were qualified to participate in the competitive interview. Among them, there are not only famous coaches in the women's football industry who have achieved good coaching records in Europe and Asia, but also British coach Colin Bell, who has led the South Korean women's football team to frequent matches with the Chinese women's football team in various competitions in recent years. This also further shows that the position of the Chinese women's football team is indeed challenging and appealing.
Colin Bell
It is understood that the interviews for the candidate coaches will all end around April 22. Since then, the expert evaluation team for the selection of commanders has made further screening, and the range of candidates has been reduced from 9 to 6 and then to 3. The three coaches who entered the final candidate camp are two former Australian women's football coaches Milicic and Stacic, and the current Danish technical director of Manchester City Women's Football in the Premier League, Nils Nelson.
Stasić
The 51-year-old Australian coach Stasic is the current head coach of the Australian Super League men's football club Perth Glory. Prior to that, he was the head coach of the Australian women's national team from 2014 to 2019, and led the Australian women's team to two consecutive runners-up in the Women's Asian Cup in 2014 and 2018. In 2015, he led the Australian women's football team to the quarterfinals of the Women's World Cup that year, eliminating the Brazilian women's football team by one goal, thus reaching the top 8. During the Rio 2016 Olympics, Stasic led the Australian women's football team to the last eight.
In 2017, Stasic was named Coach of the Year by Sports Australia. He was then nominated for the FIFA Coach of the Year award for the second year. After leaving the Australian women's team at the beginning of 2019, Stasic took over the men's AFL Central Coast Mariners team for a time. In 2021, Stasic became the head coach of the Philippine women's football team and led the team to the World Cup finals for the first time in history. During the group stage of the 2023 World Cup, the Philippine women's football team led by him defeated the host New Zealand team 1-0, causing an upset and setting a new record in the history of Philippine women's football. After that, Stasic returned to the Australian Super League to take over Perth Glory.
Milicic, who is one year younger than Stasic, also has a good coaching resume. Unlike the former, Milicic has more experience coaching the men's national team. With his glorious experience as a player, Milicic was valued by the Australian FA, and successively served as an assistant coach of the Australian men's national football team, assisting Bost Krueger and Van Marwijk to lead the team to two men's World Cups. He was also part of the coaching team that won Australia's maiden Asian Cup title on home soil in 2015.
Milicic took over the Australian women's team from Stacic in February 2019 and went on to lead the team to the last 16 of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France. Since then, he has also led the Australian women's football team through the qualifying play-offs to the women's main draw of the Tokyo Olympics. After that, Milicic left the "women's line" coaching stage and became the coach of the men's Australian Super League Macarthur FC.
Nelson
Danish coach Nelson's coaching resume has also impressed the selection panel. It is understood that Nielsen served as the head coach of the Danish U18 women's football team before 2013, and began to serve as the coach of the Danish national women's football team in the same year. During his four years in charge of the Danish women's football team, he led the team to a runners-up finish at the 2017 Women's Euro Championship and in the same year won the second place in the FIFA Women's Coach of the Year award. Fans who follow Chinese women's football may know that Nielsen briefly served as an assistant coach of the Chinese U20 women's football team in 2018, and assisted then-Danish coach Peter Bondi to lead the team to the main match of the U20 Women's World Cup. In May last year, the Women's Premier League club Manchester City officially announced that Nelson became the first women's director in the club's history.
It is understood that among the above three candidate coaches, Nielsen's comprehensive rating ranks the highest. However, due to factors such as the price of cooperation, the selection team finally gave up on selecting him and instead focused on Milicic.
Like the selection of coaches for the Chinese men's football team and other national men's and women's football teams, the selection of coaches for the Chinese women's football team also requires strict procedures. After the Chinese Football Association formed a unified opinion on the selection of Milicic, it recently submitted the specific plan to the superior unit, and finally obtained approval.
As the team is about to organize a new training camp in late May, followed by a visit to Australia to participate in two international friendlies against the Australian women's football team, the team formation work is urgent. In fact, before that, the Chinese Football Association had already selected another Australian coach, Van Egmund, as the coach of the Chinese U17 women's football team. So far, this team has won two consecutive victories in the group stage of the U17 Women's Asian Cup, and is very likely to compete for the U17 Women's World Cup ticket. The joint selection of Australian coaches by the two national women's football teams is actually conducive to coordinating the synchronous development of the two teams and optimizing the talent exchange between the teams at all levels of the women's football team.
Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Yun