Portugal’s David Patrício became the youngest coach in the Chinese Super League at the age of 38 and wants to keep newly promoted Nantong Zhiyun in the top flight, with “mission spirit” to develop Chinese football.
“Despite my age, I already have 20 years of experience as a coach,” he tells Lusa today. “I am sure that [o Nantong] could be a breath of fresh air”, thanks in particular to Chinese football’s “most ardent supporters”, he added.
Patrício was appointed on Tuesday as the first team coach of Nantong, a club in eastern China, where he arrived in 2019, where he has since held the role of assistant coach, reserve coach and technical director.
After taking third place in the Chinese League I, the second tier, Nantong was promoted to the Chinese Super League in December, with Portuguese-Guinean Zé Turbo top scorer, with 20 goals.
The striker, trained at Sporting and Inter Milan, “has terminated his contract and is going to take a different path, but soon we will receive news about new foreigners and possibly Portuguese-speaking players in the team,” said Patrício.
“We want to have a quiet season, without major upheavals, despite the smaller budget,” the Portuguese underlined.
“Our reality is different from normal in China: the clubs are run by big companies making big investments and that’s why they always manage to be very competitive,” he recalled.
Gone are the days of 2016, when the 16 teams playing in the Chinese Super League invested around 460 million euros in signing foreign players, which shook the transfer market.
“The three relegated teams had a lot of financial problems and one of them, a historic one, is about to end,” confirms David Patrício, referring to Hebei, where the Argentines passed Javier Mascherano and Ezequiel Lavezzi.
The covid-19 pandemic, which forced the coach to spend nearly two years in Portugal, dealt a serious blow to Chinese football, whose games in 2019 averaged more than 24,000 fans to stadiums, the highest number in Asia.
The clubs played in empty stadiums for three years and trained in anti-covid-19 ‘bubbles’, with virtually no revenue from ticket sales or television broadcasts.
Patrício hopes that this year, with the relaxation of the ‘zero covid’ policies, the supporters will return: “I believe it will be the most competitive competition of the last three years”.
In recent years, Beijing has taken on a desire to make the country a football powerhouse. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said he wants China to qualify for a World Cup final, host a World Cup and win one day.
“There is still a lot of work to be done, but China has huge potential and one of the things that drove me to come was the country’s dream to develop football,” said the coach.
China is ranked 80th in the FIFA rankings and the only time it took part in the final stages of a World Cup, in 2002, lost all three games and failed to score a single goal.
“I do not believe that these 1.3 billion people have no talent. What is missing is the creation of infrastructure,” said the Portuguese.
“Only in the Lisbon area there are dozens of clubs. Here, the city of Nantong, which has a population of seven million, has two clubs. There are clearly few,” he underlined.
China also needs more coaches “with a mission spirit”, the Portuguese added. “Many foreigners I met admitted that they came to China just to receive the money,” he said.
Source: DN
