Can Lippi illuminate Chinese football?

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Whether Marcello Lippi can lead the China PR international football team to the World Cup 2018 or not, the top management of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), sponsors and fans will retain sufficient confidence in this icon of the game.  This is on account of his glorious achievements in coaching both clubs and international teams including Italy, Juventus and Guangzhou Evergrande, the latter being one of the giants of Chinese and even Asian football clubs. People will put tremendous expectation and pressure on Lippi simultaneously. Fans are eager to enjoy not only a run of winning games but also a comprehensive improvement in the strength of Chinese football.

From a short-term perspective, Lippi will focus on details in training and bolstering the confidence of the players. He will structure the team in a similar way to Guangzhou Evergrande, a team that he coached a couple of years back, inspiring a chemistry between the players and making sure they are in good condition both mentally and physically. From a long-term perspective, as reports reveal, Lippi will take charge of the international team’s strategies and tactics，player selection and bonus allocation according to his contract with the CFA. In other words, he will play a key role like a club manager in England’s Premier League. This will be of benefit in shaping the team’s optimum strategy from selection, education and training to decision-making during games. It will help boost the CFA’s revolution in managing Team China objectively. From a business perspective, titles like World Cup Winner and the highest paid coach in the world certainly will fascinate fans and attract sponsors and media. This will in turn create numerous high-value marketing opportunities on and off the pitch.

Lippi is famous for his systematic and steady tactical style in dictating games. Similarly, he has a cool temperament with a charming demeanour, which are convincing and are liable to attract more high-level foreign players and coaches to China. To some degree, at present, the awareness and capabilities of foreign coaches like Scolari, Erikson, Pellegrini and Boas are higher than the foreign players such as Paulinho, Pellè, Demba Ba and Augusto in the Chinese Super League (CSL). Comparatively, Major League Soccer in the USA attracted superstars like Beckham, Gerrard and David Villa. Undoubtedly, Lippi’s popularity and trophies won are the most dazzling diamonds in the crown that is sure to enhance awareness of the CSL even at lower level leagues. This will also serve to attract more top players like Ibrahimović, Rooney and Terry and raise the profile of the Chinese football leagues in terms of sponsorship, broadcasting, reporting, club management, interaction with fans etc. Ultimately, it should help improve the league’s operation mechanism in accordance with modern commercial football league development philosophy. In addition, Lippi’s credibility would draw more and more international youth coaches to China. This would have the effect of introducing young Chinese players to different styles and philosophies of football and help make the dream of becoming a top-level football country come true.

As the most famous coach in the history of the Chinese international football team, people are looking forward to Lippi achieving great success. How can we define success with regard to Lippi? In the short term, all interested parties including the government, CFA, fans, sponsors, media and sports related enterprises are eager for the miracle to happen and see Lippi leading the team to qualification for World Cup 2018. Miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work very hard to achieve them and at the same time hope for huge good fortune. Now, with the campaign still ongoing, the counter offensive is not impossible. In the long run, when the contract with the CFA is finished, Lippi will hopefully leave a fruitful legacy to Chinese football in areas like the CFA’s sound role in the market economy, the establishment of a style of play for the Chinese international team, an enhanced awareness of the leagues and the build-up of a mature youth training system across all age levels. As the highest paid football coach in the world, the Chinese public would certainly like to judge his success against the money he earns. If people just argue over trophies won and victories against rivals like Korea, Japan and Iran, it would be short-sighted. After all, it hardly balances cost minimization and profit maximization, especially in competitive sports. China’s neighbours like Korea and Japan, have been working on creating their individual football styles for decades from clubs to national teams, from the youth team to the senior team, from the men’s team to the women’s team. Most of the time, people know that there is a path for everyone; however, they do not realise where that path has been taking them. Lippi’s priority on his task list is to guide Chinese football to find a path to sustainable development and to enter a positive growth cycle. In that sense, it might be of more benefit not to qualify for World Cup 2018. All in all, victory frequently makes people become dizzy from success. What Chinese football really needs is to successfully complete a campaign, not win some meaningless battles and also keep its feet on the ground, taking one step at a time.

In the history of Chinese international team coaches in soccer, coincidently, those coming from peninsulas are memorable to Chinese football people. Bora Milutinovic, from the Balkans, was the most successful coach of the Chinese international football team and led them to the finals of World Cup 2002. José Antonio Camacho, who came from the Iberian Peninsula, led a fruitless campaign and was dismissed by the CFA. Lippi, coming from the Apennine peninsula, is more famous and has many more glorious achievements to his name than either Milutinovic or Camacho. I believe that Lippi will lead the Chinese international team to take that qualitative leap. Please bear in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. As the old Chinese saying go, “When a melon is ripe, it falls off its stem.”

‍‍Proofread by Sean O Diobhilin‍‍