Krishna Sadhana
Football Tribe SEA Editor
With all hopes of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar pretty much ended, the Football Federation of Indonesia (PSSI) decided to take serious action and showed their senior national team head coach Simon McMenemy the door. With their next qualifying match against Thailand coming in March 26th of 2020, the PSSI worked hard to find their senior national team a new head coach before then. After screening through a variety of applicants, the PSSI has finally chosen their final two candidates for the job – Spaniard Luis Milla, who had previously handled the Indonesian national teams between 2017 and 2018, and South Korean Shin Tae-yong, who was in charge of South Korea during the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Shin’s tenure with the Taeguk Warriors saw him mastermind a stunning 2-0 win over 2014 World Cup champions Germany that dumped the Germans out of the 2018 tournament.
However reports have emerged that Shin has decided to snub the offer made for him by the PSSI, having being approached by Chinese League One side Shenzhen FC. The 2004 Chinese champions have been relegated back to the Chinese League One after finishing 15th in the 2019 Chinese Super League season and they’re looking to replace their current head coach, Roberto Donadoni, with the 49-year old former Seongham Ilhwa Chunma head coach. It was rumored that Shin preferred China as his next destination as he was free to implement his philosophies and explore his abilities there, with South Korea’s Sports Chosun claiming that Shin was Shenzhen’s one and only choice in replacing the outgoing Donadoni. However the PSSI were quick to rebuff the claims, with the federation’s vice-president, Cucu Sumantri, stating that Shin is still in the running to become Indonesia’s next head coach in an interview with CNN Indonesia. Additionally South Korea’s Sports Donga has stated that Shin is still undecided on his next destination.
With either the Indonesia or Shenzhen job being Shin’s first head coach tenure outside South Korea, it’ll be interesting to see how he will make his choice.