Bora! Bora! Bora!

His team lost their first game in South Korea, but Bora Milutinovic can still lay a strong claim to being the most popular manager in the history of the World Cup.

As the only coach to have guided four nations to the second round of the tournament, the itinerant Serb has already earned at least the temporary gratitude of 270-million Americans, 80-million Mexicans, three million Costa Ricans and 93-million Nigerians.

And if this was not enough to secure his place in the World Cup managerial pantheon, he has just gone one step further: guiding China to their first finals, an achievement that has made him a hero for a nation of 1,2-billion people.

After China ended their 20-year qualification duck with a 1-0 victory over Oman last October, half a million ecstatic fans chanted ”Milu” in a spontaneous celebration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The 57-year-old coach is now the object of adulation that surpasses even the English worship of Sven-Goran Eriksson. Numerous Chinese newspaper headlines have declared that he is nothing less than a ”wonder worker”.

Milutinovic, however, takes it all in his stride. He has, after all, been here on four previous occasions.

”I’m happy. Everyone’s happy. The sense of excitement was so strong after we qualified that it was not normal,” he said. ”In every country people feel the same way about success, but the difference with China is the scale. When Costa Rica qualified, three million people were delighted. Here the emotion is the same but it is multiplied by 200 times because of the size of the population.”

It has not always been hero worship. Milutinovic enjoyed a brief honeymoon when he took the helm in January 2000, but China’s third foreign coach (following the Briton Bobby Houghton and German Klaus Schlappner) was heavily criticised after his team won only one of their first nine friendlies.

True to his previously successful strategies in other countries, the much-travelled manager was experimenting with different players, giving them experience of playing against stronger teams and trying to change their approach to the game. But the ”happy soccer” theory he espoused was not appreciated by sports writers used to extolling more workmanlike virtues.

”Before I came, all the emphasis was on work. There was much less enjoyment than in the other countries where I had coached. But I have tried to mix the Chinese way of doing things with my way. The players must train hard but I try to get them to enjoy what they do.”

This approach was criticised as lax by the Chinese media, who called for Milutinovic’s head, but the colourful manager won a reprieve with a typically bold promise to jump off the Great Wall if his team failed to qualify for the World Cup.

That never looked likely as China, propelled by Xie Hui, Qu Bo, Li Xiaopeng and Hao Haidong, booked their place in the finals at a canter. Their only defeat, away in Uzbekistan, came after qualification had been assured.

When Milutinovic visited the Great Wall in February it was as a non-jumping tourist in the company of Pele, who predicted that the China coach would once again lead his team beyond the first stage of the World Cup.

Given Pele’s tendency to make predictions on the basis of what will please his audience rather than on their actual form, this punditry will probably not have had group rivals quaking in their boots. But Milutinovic is cautiously optimistic that his team can secure a draw against Turkey and a win against Costa Rica, which would give them a good chance of progressing.

”We must be optimistic,” said the experienced Serb. ”I’m already very satisfied that China have qualified for the first time, which was our biggest target. But naturally people want more and more, so now I expect they will kick me from the Great Wall if we don’t get through our group.”

The veteran of four World Cups predicts that Brazil — another of China’s opponents in group C — will go on to win the tournament. ”They have fantastic players and the big advantage of not being favourites this time, so I would put them just ahead of France and Argentina as the strongest contenders, with England, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Cameroon as the chasing pack.”

With more and more countries now selecting their national team managers on the basis of experience and results rather than nationality, Milutinovic could yet end up with one of these strong sides for the tournament in Germany in 2006.

After this summer, however, he says he is ready for a new challenge. ”I won’t stay in China because I must think of my family. But I won’t retire, because football is my life, my identity. I need to think about my future, but first I must concentrate on the tournament.”

A billion football fans will be relieved to hear that.

Bora’s Cup runs

Mexico 1986