AVB wants to win CSL title at SIPG
Print Edition
ANDRE Villas-Boas says he has come to Shanghai with the aim of winning the league title for SIPG and fulfill his “ambitions”.
The former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur coach met local journalists at a 55-minute press conference yesterday afternoon, during which Shanghai SIPG General Manager Sui Guoyang officially introduced the Portuguese as the club’s new head coach, replacing former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson.
“The agreement had been reached for quite a while,” said Sui. “Despite the many online rumors, I can assure you that SIPG was the first Chinese club to visit Villas-Boas in person. The contract will last for more than one year, which suggests broader prospects.”
Sui said the contract was signed on Tuesday, and the club’s goal in the new season is clear: to win at least one title from the three competitions in the Chinese Super League, China Football Association Cup and the AFC Champions League.
AVB said the new job is a different challenge in his career, and the club shares the same ambition with him — winning a championship.
“I only came here to win the title. I’m a young coach. I’m ambitious and I want to win,” he said. “This is the normal life of a football coach. When you win, you get praise and recognition from people and the club.”
“I decided to come here because SIPG is ambitious. It wants to win the title and become No. 1 in China next season.”
AVB said the SIPG Group’s promise of continuous investment into the club has boosted his confidence, which he will pass on to his players.
“I have studied the team a lot since the agreement was reached. Our focus now is to put the team together and make it stronger. The team is not confident enough, but we need to close the gap between us and Guangzhou so as to win the title,” AVB said, referring to reigning CSL champion Guangzhou Evergrande, managed by Brazilian Luis Felipe Scolari.
The new manager seems to have done his homework, as he easily named some of the club’s major players. “Wu Lei, Yu Hai, Fu Huan, Sun Xiang, Yan Junling. It’s unfair that we have to mention one player ahead of another one. But I want to know them not through video, but through training on a day to day basis.”
AVB, who left Russia’s Zenit St Petersburg after two years, will start work immediately. He watch a friendly between SIPG’s youth team and their Hebei opponents to evaluate the club’s young talents, though he suggested that his journey to China may not be a long one.
“My contract with SIPG is a short one, and I can only bring my influence at the youth levels. I will give them motivation by sometimes bringing them into the first team,” he said.
“I always wanted a short coaching career (in one team). I went to Russia, and was very close to going to Mexico, and I always wanted to try Asia, to work in Japan or China. My logic is that my career is to experience new challenges. I want my football coaching career to be short rather than long, as I have different ambitions in life further than football.”
One of AVB’s first major tasks at SIPG will be to introduce new foreign players as the club’s playmaker Dario Conca is expected to be out for up to eight months following an injury late in the season for which he is receiving treatment in the US.
“We will have to look at it in the long term,” AVB replied when asked about Conca’s future with the team. “If we are short of foreign players, we will have to make a decision with the club. I cannot deny that in order to make the team stronger, and close the gap between top teams, we need to make some changes.”
SIPG finished third in last year’s CSL, sealing a spot in next year’s AFC Champions League. It also advanced to the quarterfinals in its debut ACL season.
But “to win the national championship is our main focus,” said AVB, who has brought along an assistant coach, a goalkeeper coach, a physical coach, a translator, a mental coach and a staff member responsible for the medical department to Shanghai.
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