Vahid Halilhodzic is a coach who knows what it’s like to lead a team during a world: The Bosnian who is now 69 did a great job with him Algeria in Brazil 2014.
However, Halilhodzic has not been able to prove himself on world football’s biggest stage on another occasion, which is incredible when you consider that since qualifying for South Africa in 2010 he has managed to qualify a team for the World Cup.
The Bosnian coach just was expelled by the Royal Moroccan Football Federationjust over three months after its debut Morocco in Qatar 2022a tournament in which the North African team will face Belgium, Croatia and Canada in Group F.
Although in the American and European teams it is somewhat less common, in the rest of the continents it is not so strange to see a change of coach so shortly before the World Cup that the same coach who was leaving had qualified the team. The impressive thing is that Halilhodzic is the It happened for the third time in less than 15 years.
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Ivory Coast, the first case
After a fruitful career as scorer striker in football for Yugoslavia and France in the 1970s and 1980s, Halilhodzic began coaching in the 1990s. He won the African Champions League in 1997 with Raja Casablancaled to Lil from the French second division to the Champions League and won the Coupe de France with the PSGuntil in 2008 he got his first chance in national team football.
Halilhodzic took over the best generation in football history Ivory Coastwith Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure in the head in addition to other footballers who competed in the first level of Europe. Under his command, the team did not miss any of the 12 matches of the South Africa 2010 Qualifiers and qualified without problems, but five months before the World Cup he traveled to Angola to play the Africa Cup of Nationswhich he reached as a champion candidate for the first time since 1992.
Algeria eliminated Ivory Coast in the quarter-finals of the continental competition 3-2, with the equalizer at 90+2 minutes and another goal in extra time, and at the end of February 2010 the coach was dismissed from his duties. With Sven-Goran Eriksson as a coach, Ivory Coast were eliminated in the group stage of South Africa in 2010 after adding four points.
Japan, the second story
After a great three-year process in Algeria, in which not only Halilhodzic was ranked The desert foxes in Brazil in 2014 but managed to arrive round 16 in the competition and eliminated by champions Germany in extra time (2-1 loss), the Bosnian did not renew his contract there and in 2015 signed as Japan’s new coachan Asian heavyweight participating in the World Cup from France in 1998.
Halilhodzic’s favorite style, a more defensive football and with a commitment to the counter-attack, it never ended happily in Japan, with a very technical football culture and possession of the ball. So, although the Japanese team qualified for the Qualifiers for Russia 2018, the criticism reached the coach.
Japan qualified for the World Cup as the winners of their group of the Qualifiers, over Saudi Arabia and Australia, but the East Asian Football Championshipa small tournament, it was a hard blow for Halilhodzic: his team, with few experienced players, lost 4-1 to South Korea in the definition of the tournament.
This result left a very big mark inside April 2018, two months before traveling to Russiathe Japan Football Association has decided to change its coach: fired Halilhodzic mentioning it poor results and a lack of “communication and trust” with the players as an occasion and hired Akira Nishino, a former local soccer player.
“I felt that this gap (between players and coaching staff) was difficult to bridge and the players could not live up to the demands of the previous coach.” Nishino commented on the case: he was the technical director of the national team while Halilhodzic was the coach. It was known that the Bosnian he was not on good terms with Keisuke Honda, Shinji Kagawa and Shinji Okazakithree stars of the Japanese team.
Japan have reached the Round of 16 at Russia 2018: finished second in Group H with four points, against Senegal and Poland and then was disqualified by Belgium down 3-2 with a goal in the 90+4th minute.
Morocco, Halilhodzic’s third dismissal
With the backdrop of Ivory Coast and, more than anything else, that of Japan, the news of Halilhodzic’s suspension from the Moroccan national team is not that surprising even though it has qualified for the second World Cup of the 21st century (they participated in Russia 2018).
Coach took office in mid-2019after the disappointment it meant for Morocco to be eliminated from the African Cup of Nations by Benin in the round of 16 and fulfilled his goal of taking the Moroccans to Qatar 2022: the team won all six of their group stage matches and then crushed the Democratic Republic of Congo 5-2 in the world series that determined a ticket to the World Cup.
However, in the latter African Nations Cup, held between January and February of this year, Morocco were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Egypt (lost 2-1 in extra time) and from there the criticism of “Coach Wahid”, as he was called in the African country, increased.
In May, Le Monde reported that the Royal Moroccan Football Federation had tried to terminate Halilhodzic’s contract, but the Bosnian had requested more than 4 million euros. The names of the French were released Laurent Blanc, Rudi Garcia and Claude Puel as possible replacements.
Halilhodzic’s cycle was finally completed by The Lions of Atlasteam in which the coach I didn’t consider Hakim Ziyehchelsea footballer and Noussair Mazraouinew Bayern Munich man, due to indiscipline: Žižek had declared he would never play in Morocco again while Halilhodzic is manager and both he and Mazraoui had already been ruled out of the last Africa Cup of Nations.
The Zig’s possible absence from the World Cup It appears to have been, according to L’Equipe’s report, the issue that ended up ousting “heavy-handed” Bosnian coach Halilhodzic. The French newspaper lists him as a favorite to replace him Walid RegraghiFrench Moroccan compared to last season won the Moroccan league and the African Champions League with Wydad AC from Casablanca.
