| Monday, November 12, 2001, updated at 10:20(GMT+8) |
Chinese Football Should Have Milutinovic Long Ago, Says Havelange |
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Joao Havelange, the former Brazilian chairman of soccer world ruling body FIFA, lavished praises for Bora Milutinovic who headed the Chinese national football team to enter the World Cup finals for the first time after a 44-year tumultuous odyssey.
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Joao Havelange, the former Brazilian chairman of soccer world ruling body FIFA, lavished praises for Bora Milutinovic who headed the Chinese national football team to enter the World Cup finals for the first time after a 44-year tumultuous odyssey.
Havelange is here as a member of the International Olympic Committee invited to attend opening ceremony of China's Ninth National Games in this southern city Sunday evening.
Receiving an interview with Xinhua, the former FIFA chairman said Milutinovic is an internationally recognized outstanding coach and the Chinese Football Association should have sought his help long ago.
He told Xinhua that a good coach is essential for China's football if it wants to reach the world standard. With Milutinovic the Chinese team made the historical breakthrough in qualifying for the World Cup finals. Only the invitation of this "miracle" coach came too late, said Havelange.
He also advised that Chinese football players should participate in more games in Europe and American and get mature in international competitions. Meanwhile, he said, China should bring up more younger players, which will be the foundation of China's football sport.
As for the Brazilian football team's staggering performance in the preliminaries of the 2002 World Cup, which lost too many game unexpectedly, Havelange said, "This is football. It always brings about unexpectedness."
Citing Holland who failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup finals, and Germany and Belgium who met a lot of troubles in their way to the World Cup finals, Havelange said it was only normal that Brazil did not have a smooth sailing in the preliminaries.
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