BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Serbian coach looks to work wonders with football national teams


Serbian coach looks to work wonders with football national teams
by rick olivares

Serbian football coach Zoran Dordevic who found success coaching the national squads of Bangladesh, Sudan, and Yemen will now work his magic with the various Philippine National Teams. The 62-year old from Veliki Jovanovac, Serbia arrived last Tuesday, January 17, with Japanese sports journalist Takashi Morimoto who aside from running Deren Sumida, a football club in Mongolia, is a frequent Manila visitor who covers the Philippine Men’s National Team.

Dordevic met with Philippine Football Federation officials led by President Mariano Araneta, General Secretary Rolly Tulay, and National Team Manager Dan Palami on two separate occasions to present his plans on helping the national sides not coached by senior national squad boss Hans Michael Weiss.

The PFF and Dordevic came to an agreement last Thursday at the federation’s head office in Pasig City. Palami said that the Serbian was confident that he would be able to help the Philippines’ younger national teams win some titles. “He’s a disciplinarian and a teacher,” described Palami who seemed impressed after the series of meetings with Dordevic who used to play the midfield in his younger days in the former republic of Yugoslavia. “I am excited because there is a lot to do (here),” said the Serb who once coached Bader Al-Mutawa who was a part of the Kuwait team that ousted the Azkals from the World Cup Qualifiers last July 28, 2011 with a 5-1 aggregate score.

Dordevic’s resume is filled with accomplishments with his success with Bangladesh his most recent feather in his cap. He led the Bengal Tigers to the 2010 South Asian Games football championship with an immaculate 5-0 record while scoring 13 goals and not conceding any to the opposition. It was Bangladesh’s first gold medal after an 11-year drought.

However, in spite of Dordevic’s success, it seems that he has a hard time getting along with the clubs or federations he works with. In his last post as a national team coach, he had a falling out with the Bangladesh Football Federation. According to a report by Bangladesh’s Daily Star, the Serb’s one-month tenure with the Bengal Tigers ended prematurely when the BFF cited their inability to pay the increase that he was asking for. From a one-month contract, Dordevic was reported to have sought a four-year contract worth US $1 million. The Daily Star quoted BFF President Kazi Salahuddin as saying, “We have no ability to get such a large amount of money.”

Dordevic in turn ripped into his former employers who he called “gangsters.” 
"I am very sorry for Bangladesh and the future of football. I don't feel better here and will leave Bangladesh when I get my passport, tickets and remuneration. I am very upset. They don't have vision and they don't want the betterment of football. These people have no future, they are gangsters and they are not working for football.”

The Indian Express also reported that Serb also fell out with the management of Indian club Churchill Brothers after leading them to the I-League title in 2009. Dordevic is on a short term contract with the PFF.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Rick,

    Just a little correction. The Coache's last name is Djordevic, not Dordevic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are you sure? Sorry, mate. It's Dordevic. He gave us us his CV with that spelling and if you look it up on the internet you'll find out that it is the correct spelling,

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Rick,

    It is indeed the correct spelling, literally translated from Cyrillic into the Latin alphabet, but you would have to include the diacritic that comes with it. Most English publications would spell it Djordjevic without the diacritic, to reflect the pronunciation(pronounced Jor-je-vich).

    It is similar to how the Germans would use Muller with an umlaut above the letter u, but would spell it Mueller in the English language without the diacritic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. From one of our Mods(GerardoDCA) in usapangfootball.proboards.com

    To clear things up:

    In Serbia the name "Zoran Đorđević" is spelled as "Zoran Đorđević" but is pronounced as "Zoran Djordjevic"(Jor-je-vich)

    Hope this helps...

    WikingBK

    ReplyDelete
  5. And the CV that he gave me spelled "Dordevic". So that settles it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fine. We don't really have to follow the rules used by the international media to anglicize Cyrillic names. It is just as important to follow the coach wishes on how his name is spelled.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete