New Sri Lanka football coach Amir Alagic said that he is not a magician to change Sri Lanka’s football to winning ways overnight and urged all stakeholders of the game, including the fans to be patient.
Alagic also said that even the elite clubs the world over that are playing at the top level succeeded after following a four-year plan. He was introduced by the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) at a media briefing held at their headquarters. Former coach Nizam Pakeer Ali who worked for nearly two years saw Sri Lanka’s ranking drop to the 205 position. They had just one win from 24 matches while drawing five games and have scored only seven goals.
The new coach is from Bosnia, lives in Australia and holds an UEFA Professional coaching license and has worked with many European and elite clubs in Asia. Alagic has a rich coaching career spanning 25 years, having coached clubs in countries such as Australia, Bosnia, Germany, USA, Brunei, India, Oman and Sweden. “The standard of football in Sri Lanka is at an amateur level and will require a considerable amount of time to uplift it to a competitive level. You need to have a competitive professional league in order to bring in quality players and there are no professional leagues in Sri Lanka,” noted Alagic. “After one week of training, I find that the players lack quality, physicality and fitness and can developed it through professional league only. “India has professional leagues in many sports and football has become more popular after the professional league commenced,” said Alagic. He also served as a head coach for Brunei and was the assistant coach of Werder Bremen of Germany in 2007 when the club played in the UEFA Champions League.