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The parting ways of Martin Rennie and the Vancouver Whitecaps has brought some speculation as to who the new Caps coach will be. Frank Yallop was believed by most to be the new coach but he ended up joining the Chicago Fire.
Out of the many potential candidates, one name seems to stand out. That is the name of Miodrag Jesic, who last coached top Bulgarian club CSKA Sofia earlier this year. Jesic previously coached CSKA from 2004 to 2006, winning the league title in 2005.
He also drew attention in Bulgaria by winning the National Cup with Litex Lovech in 2008 and by being the first foreigner to be voted Bulgarian coach of the year. Jesic has his own coaching staff consisting of fitness coach Darko Obradovic, assistant coach Srdjan Tekijaski and goalkeeping coach Rade Zalad.
We recently caught up with Jesic to ask him more about the potential move.
RedNation Online (RNO): Mr. Jesic, earlier this year you were head coach of CSKA Sofia. Wouldn’t it have been logical for them to keep you on board considering the fact that you had success with the club earlier on?
Miodrag Jesic: After winning the title with CSKA in the 2004/05 season (the club’s 30th title) and with great play and results in European competitions – where among others we beat soccer giants Bayer Leverkusen and then-European champ Liverpool in England – there was a change in the managing structure of the club. Even though we had success and made a good generation of players, we had to leave all that and move on. New management, new way of thinking.
Why I began my answer to your question by going back in time a few years Djuradj is because after our departure CSKA, as the most prestigious Bulgarian club with the most championships, won only one championship in 2008 and five years after that they couldn’t win the championship.
In January during the winter break of the 2012/13 season we took charge of CSKA, who were 4th in the league standings, and we agreed with the then-management to finish that season and to work two more seasons. A few months later however, the firm that was leading the club decided to quit and to not finance CSKA any longer. So after that new people came in with new visions and ideas and among other things, they brought in a new coaching staff as well. That’s the shortest possible answer I can give.
RNO: What are your thoughts on the Vancouver Whitecaps and on MLS in general? There have been rumours about you and the vacant position in Vancouver. Is there a possibility that you could become the new head coach?
Miodrag Jesic: I was in Canada with FK Partizan on a tournament back during my playing days and I can say that I still have awesome impressions from that tournament. I liked everything that I saw and experienced there. We were stationed in Toronto and from there we went to other cities and played games against teams such as Porto and Benfica.
I think that MLS now is a league that has been developing and getting better in the past few years. Other than the development and advancement of home-grown players, the quality of the league is also raised to another level by the bringing in of star foreign players from across the world.
In MLS there have been a lot of European and World star players and there still is and because of all this, I would love to work in MLS with my coaching staff – especially in Vancouver.
Vancouver is one of the top ten cities in North America and it’s a multicultural city and we have years of experience working on three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa) in a continuous rhythm. I think we would adapt quickly and easily and with our work we would be able to contribute to the further development of the game of soccer in North America – by getting good results.
I’d also like to add that MLS is watched everywhere in the world and can easily be followed. Soccer is played for the fans and wherever we have worked, we were successful and, most importantly, the fans enjoyed watching the way we played and our style of play. I’m positive it would be like that in Vancouver as well.
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