Now it's official: Marcello Lippi, world champion with Italy in 2006, is the new coach of the Chinese national football team. The confirmation came from the Chinese Football Federation, which communicated the agreement in a note: for Lippi it is a huge contract, worth 20 million euros net per season up to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, in which, however, China is anything but qualified.
The first challenge for the 68-year-old coach, who has already enjoyed three successful seasons on Chinese soil at the helm of Guangzhou Evergrande, with whom he won the Chinese League title three times and the Asian Champions League in 2013, will be precisely that of qualifying the national team at the next World Cup. China currently occupies the last place in group B with just one point (tied against Iran, defeats by South Korea, Syria and Uzbekistan): Lippi will now have six matches, the first of which will be on November 15 against Qatar, to try and climb up to first or second place, which will assign the direct pass for Russia 2018. Third place guarantees a play-off with the third-placed team from the other group and a possible intercontinental challenge with the fourth-placed team from the Concacaf group.
