Luiz Felipe Scolari wants to become the first coach in history to win the World Cup and the Club World Cup and won’t complain if he happens to complete the double in Tashkent rather than the more glamorous surroundings of Chelsea in southwest London.
Scolari led his native Brazil to the 2002 World Cup title and is now preparing his Uzbek club Bunyodkor for today’s Asian Champions League (ACL) quarter-final against Pohang Steelers of South Korea.
The winner of the ACL competition will represent Asia at the FIFA Club World Cup in December and could face European giants Barcelona.
Scolari was fired by Chelsea earlier this year but found solace with the ambitious and newly wealthy Central Asian club helped by the fact, according to British media speculation, that he is the highest-paid coach in the world with an annual salary of around US$18 million.
“I am here because I believe I can contribute to the growth of the Uzbek game,” Scolari said recently. “I also believe in this project.”
Domestic success is a given. This project demands Asian championships.
“Certainly, I would like Bunyodkor to win the continental title,” said Scolari, who took Portugal to the final of Euro 2004 and the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup. “I think we will have equal chances of winning against Pohang Steelers.”
As well as the 2002 World Cup winning coach, Bunyodkor have recruited Rivaldo, a star player of that Brazilian squad and the 1999 World Player of the Year.
The former Barcelona star played a big part in Scolari’s decision to head to Tashkent.
“Rivaldo suggested it to me,” Scolari revealed. “He had already been here almost a year at the time. I already knew about the structure of the club and was fascinated by the ambition of the Bunyodkor chiefs. A project of this scale is a fantasy!”
Scolari’s arrival was anything but fantastic for Bunyodkor’s domestic rivals, especially Pakhtakor which has lost its best players to the new powerhouse.
Despite just squeezing through the group stage of the continental competition with eight points from six games, Bunyodkor have won 23 games out of 23 in the Uzbek league and enjoy a 19 point lead.
If challenges have been hard to come by at home, Pohang will present a stiffer test, as Rivaldo acknowledged.
“Pohang have a Brazilian star, Denilson, in their squad and their coach Sergio Farias is well known, so we should take Pohang very seriously and not treat them like a usual rival,” Rivaldo said.
That would be wise as the Koreans have won eight and drawn four of their last 12 K-League games and on Sept. 13 recorded the biggest win in the competition’s history by thrashing Jeju United 8-1.
Pohang also destroyed Australia’s Newcastle Jets 6-0 in the second round of the ACL and the two-time Asian champion are on course to score 100 goals in all competitions this season.
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