Monday, October 24, 2011

End of the road

After their abject failure at the AFC President's Cup and a disastrous league campaign, Myanmar's Yadanarbon have sacked their French manager, Yoan Girard and replaced him with Brazilian Jose Alves Borges. That is despite Girard guiding the club to a President's Cup victory in 2010, two Myanmar league championships and a Myanmar Cup success in the three years he was at the helm. You are only as good as your last game is the age-old football adage, and in Girard's case, his previous record counted for nothing as his services were dispensed with. Girard coached in France and Morocco as well as with Muangthong in Thailand, before linking up with Yadanarbon. The club have returned to Muangthong for their next coach, with Borges acting as the Thai club's technical director this year after previous coaching success with junior Thai teams and Tobacco Monopoly, who won the Thai title in 2004, and TTM Phichit in the Thai Premier. To spice up their pre-season Yadanarbon have announced that they will undertake a European tour and meet Division 2 clubs in Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium in June next year. In this season's AFC President's Cup they lost 4-0 to Phnom Penh Crown and then 8-2 to Neftchi, which was simply too much for the club's owners to take. The club eventually finished in 9th spot in the 12-team league championship, which was won by Yangon United. The other team that Phnom Penh Crown faced, and beat, in the group stage of the AFC President's Cup, Neftchi from Kyrgyzstan, finished runners-up in their league title race, with Dordoi-Dynamo reclaiming the trophy they'd won six times in a row before Neftchi's 2010 success.

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