Dubai: The UAE job represents a chance for Alberto Zaccheroni to reignite his career following six years in the doldrums.
Since winning the 2011 Asian Cup with Japan just four months into his tenure there, the 64-year-old Italian — who replaced Edgardo Bauza in Dubai this week — has precious little to show for his efforts after crashing out of the 2014 World Cup group stages with the Samurai Blue, before resigning from his only previous international post.
The only job he has had in between was a disastrous four-month spell in charge of China’s Beijing Guoan early last year, where they endured their worst start to a Chinese Super League season picking up just nine points in nine matches, leaving them 12th in the 16-team league, a point above the relegation zone.
Zaccheroni’s playing career was cut short by injury at the age of 30 and he started in management by earning promotions from Serie D with Riccione in 1986/87 and Baracca Lugo in 1988/89.
This led onto a promotion from Serie C2 with Baracca Lugo in 1989/90 and Serie C1 with Venezia in 1990/91.
Eventually Udinese came calling in 1995 and the man from Meldola, in the north east of Italy, found fame for leading the minnows to fifth and third place finishes in Serie A qualifying for the Uefa Cup with the likes of Olivier Bierhoff and Thomas Helveg in his squad.
Bierhoff and Helveg followed him to AC Milan in 1998, where he transformed an underperforming side into Serie A winners in his first season, taking the Serie A Coach of the Year Award for his efforts. The next two seasons weren’t as successful at the San Siro however, and he was eventually sacked by Silvio Berlusconi.
Lazio followed in 2001 where he turned around a poor start to the season under Dino Zoff to finish sixth, earning a Uefa Cup spot. But he was still sacked at the end of the season for fielding players out of position, and losing the Rome derby 5-1.
He took on a similarly brief firefighting role at Inter Milan replacing Hector Cuper midway through the season in 2003, where despite finishing fourth and earning a Champions League place, he was still offloaded with a 5-1 defeat to Arsenal in the Champions League group stage taken into account.
After two years without a job, he joined newly promoted Torino in 2006 but was fired after an initially bright start turned south.
He then replaced Ciro Ferrara midway through the season at crisis-hit Juventus in 2010 but left after finishing seventh and crashing out to Fulham in the Europa League Last 16. This led him into the Japan job.
Zaccheroni admirably worked his way up the hard way and, in theory, the UAE have a proven Asian Cup winning coach ready to lead them into their hosting of the 2019 edition of the tournament. However, worrying gaps in his CV and the fact that most of his major teams, bar AC Milan, were just brief stints, leave serious question marks.
Without Japan’s Asian Cup win, his is a career that hasn’t taken off from an initially bright start at Udinese, and that first season at AC Milan, but if he were to follow it up with success in charge of the UAE it would reaffirm his coaching credentials.
The UAE had time to appoint a manager but opted for a quick solution in available Zaccheroni, and you can’t help thinking that is a risk because although his experience may be relevant to the tournament it isn’t all that recent.
