China, managed by a Serb, are favourites to qualify for the World Cup finals from Asia’s preliminary groups
Amy Lawrence in Doha, Qatar
The Arabian gulf: a scrum of Chinese photographers make the room flash like a disco, capturing the moment a Serb, who has been speaking Spanish because his wife lives in Mexico, and a Bosnian, fluent in English because his wife lives in Swansea, embrace after a football match. World Cup qualification is truly a global affair. A cultural challenge, a linguistic nightmare, a footballing task that demands water turned to wine; Sven-Gran Eriksson has got it easy compared to the foreign managers aiming for success in Asia.
Take Bora Milutinovic, the astonishingly adaptable coach of China. He lives in Beijing but doesn’t have the foggiest idea where. His only means of communicating with his players is via translators or the international language of ferocious gesticulation. He estimates he has the same number of professionals to choose from as could be found in London.
To fulfil his mission, to take China to their first World Cup finals, takes every ounce of his strength. “Oh, it’s about time,” remarked one of the 70-strong posse of Chinese journalists shadowing the team on their travels. “We need to be there.” Milutinovic’s adopted country are unbeaten, top of the group and favourites to secure automatic qualification. How does he do it?
According to one of his old friends, a Frenchman coaching in Qatar who met up with him in Doha when China played there in early September, “his secret is that he knows how to make a good mayonnaise”. It’s all about blending your ingredients with a touch of class. The Chinese may be utterly baffled by Bora and his inborn eccentricity (this is a man who turns idiosyncrasy into an art form, thrives on a wicked sense of humour, will try anything once, and lives for football) but they respect the experience and expertise he brings to an under- developed football culture.
The trend for employing foreign coaches has swept through Asia for that very reason. The World Cup hosts, Japan and South Korea, have hired top quality Europeans former Bafana coach Phillipe Troussier and Guus Hiddink respectively. Of the 10 Asian teams vying for the opportunity to join them next summer, eight are managed by foreigners. Among them Miroslav Blazevic, who took Croatia to the bronze medal in France 98, is in Iran, and Englishman Peter Withe in Thailand. When form is as good as the money they earn it’s easier to survive the complications that come with managing in culturally alien countries. But when the team is struggling, it’s painfully demoralising.
When Bahrain could manage only a draw against Thailand their German coach was confronted with reports that the Crown Prince had phoned a radio station to complain about his tactics. What did he think of that? Naturally, the old chestnut about not accepting criticism from someone who knows nothing about football was not an option. Unsurprisingly, there is a high turnover of coaches in Asia.
After seven years working in Qatar, the lonely figure of Dzemal Hadziabdic (known locally as Jamal Haji), seems a tortured soul. This friendly Bosnian, who played left-back for Swansea City when the Welsh side topped the league under John Toshack in the early 1980s, was so dedicated to making it as a coach he was prepared to go anywhere. “When I finished playing I sent my CV to 72 countries. I had 100 at the time and spent it on stamps. Only the Hong Kong Federation sent a reply. Then I went to have an interview at Darlington [England division three], and my wife gave me money to buy new trousers.
“I was rich in my country, I had two restaurants, an apartment, a lot of money. I went to see Darlington home and away to prepare everything, but my English was bad. One director asked me about my domestic situation and I didn’t know the word domestic at the time. They said thank you very much. I knew I was a good coach, and that day I decided to go to Qatar.
“Nobody spends seven years in Qatar, but this has been a long seven years. I am tired. Compared to Europe, I am not just a coach. I am father, I am mother, I am social worker. I must understand the culture, mentality, religion. I have too many responsibilities.” Flying over Qatar, with its parched flatlands and floating haze of 46C heat, the thought occurs that it is some kind of miracle they have a football team at all. The capital Doha, according to the Lonely Planet guide book, is the dullest place on earth. It is eerily quiet. Surely here is the only souk in the world where you can hear your own footsteps. No place for football, it seems.
The odds are stacked against them. The indigenous population is 150000. There are just 10 clubs which, when you subtract the three foreigners and the fact each team has goalkeepers from the equation, leaves Hadziabdic with fewer than 200 outfield players to choose from.
“Selection here is a problem,” he laments. “The second problem is that these players play football for a joke, for pleasure. Many times I come to training in my Toyota and my players come with a Porsche or Rolls-Royce, and I have to kick them out of training. The third problem is that I have improved Qatar to such an extent people are more ambitious and ask for more. My team think we are Brazil … Too much pressure.”
Brazil they are not but what Hadziabdic has achieved is phenomenal considering the tools he has to work with. Against China they would have secured a deserved win but for a string of missed chances and a goalkeeping howler two minutes from time to make it 1-1. The game itself was fascinating. Not least because the kick-off time was arranged so that half-time could be spent in the proper way queuing for a snack or visiting the gents comes second to the fans’ priority of kneeling on their flags to pray at the appointed hour. It was almost as amazing as the sight of a steward performing magic tricks, making bottle tops and riyal notes disappear and reappear.
Equally interesting was the quality of play, important for Ireland, who look destined to play an Asian team in a November play-off. A common theme among teams from these parts is inconsistency. China were awful for half an hour. Qatar suddenly grew in confidence while China grew in confusion. Then the tables turned. The 500 visiting fans, totally out-wailed by 20000 locals for all but the final moments, were overjoyed when their heroes stole a point at the death.
It’s early days to gauge who Ireland might face. There are two Asian groups, from which the winners guarantee passage to Japan and Korea, while the two runners-up fight it out for a place in the eliminator against Ireland. In Group A Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Iran (whose crucial triumph in Iraq this month marked only the second direct flight between Tehran and Baghdad since the international air embargo over a decade ago) are setting the pace. China ought to win Group B, with Qatar still in the running for second spot.
China play the United Arab Emirates this weekend, while Qatar take on Uzbekistan. Military action against Afghanistan in the wake of terror attacks in the United States might disrupt the schedule.
Milutinovic’s magic is working again. China trust him. And so they should; his track record, in taking four teams to the finals Costa Rica, US, Mexico and Nigeria is unique. But, for a man who could sell himself as Rent-a-World-Cup, China is different altogether. People wonder how the world’s most populous country has never qualified. Bora elucidates: “It’s very simple to explain. Soccer is not the most popular game, you don’t have a strong league, you don’t have a deep-rooted passion. How are you supposed to go to the World Cup? The size of your country doesn’t determine how good you are. Ireland are a great example of that.
“In China the biggest problem is you don’t have contact with competitive soccer. Secondly, you don’t have tradition in the game. They try to make the best of it, but it is harder for the talent to develop when you have no basis for it. I just tell my players to believe in themselves. Have confidence, have team spirit, play the game. It’s very easy to tell but hard to do.” He is making swift progress. China don’t panic anymore, they have the professionalism to be patient and showed it in Qatar.
After two weeks in the Middle East, sweltering some seven time zones from home, Milutinovic was satisfied to coax his adopted country to an efficient return of four points from a double header in Oman and Qatar. He was rewarded with a bouquet from the football federation, a chocolate birthday cake, and the undimmable smiles of a bunch of ecstatic players. Hadziabdic, in bleak contrast, looked a broken man. His team had performed well and a point against the strongest team in the group was no disgrace. But the years have taken their toll.
He is expected to quit soon, so if Ireland end up in Doha they will probably face a team under new management. The lasting impression of football in Asia is: expect the unexpected.