Oman team prepares carefully
Oman is one of five opponents for Vietnam in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers alongside Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia and China. Oman is currently ranked 80th in the world. In history, the team has never participated in the World Cup. In the continental arena, Oman's best achievement is reaching the round of 16 of the 2019 Asian Cup - worse than the Vietnamese team.
The Oman team is currently led by Branko Ivankovic, who was an assistant to Croatia in the third place of the 1998 World Cup. Mr. Ivankovic is a very experienced player who has achieved many successes with Croatian, Iranian and Chinese clubs. He also led the Iranian team from 2002 to 2006, participating in the 2006 World Cup with the team.
To best prepare the team, the Oman Football Association (OFA) has made a very detailed plan. Accordingly, Oman has chosen the Sultan Qaboos stadium with a capacity of more than 34,000 spectators as their home stadium. The Oman national team players will have a full break to focus on playing for the national team from July 2021 to March 2022.
During this period, Oman will play 10 qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup, participating in the Arabian Cup taking place in Qatar from November 30 to December 18, 2021 and the Gulf Cup from December 24, 2021 to January 7, 2022. If they reach the finals of these two tournaments, Oman will play a total of 11 more matches.
The team's most important goal is still to successfully compete in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. To prepare for the opening match against Japan away on September 2, Oman will gather from July 24, then fly to Serbia for long-term training. Here, coach Ivankovic's team is expected to have 4 friendly matches with local clubs.
Coach Branko Ivankovic is currently on a summer break in his home country of Croatia and is arranging all the work for the Oman team to go to Serbia for training. On August 23, the whole team will fly to Japan and will have about 10 days to adapt to the local climate and weather. After the end of the opening match, Oman will fly to Muscat to prepare for the second match against Saudi Arabia on September 7.
Oman and its relationship with Vietnamese football
In 2008, when the Vietnamese team sought a new coach to replace Alfred Riedl, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) reduced the list of 5 candidates, including Branko Ivankovic - who is leading the Serbian team. Other candidates include Colombia's Francisco Maturana Garcia, Croatia's Zoran Vulic, Germany's Hans Juergen Gede and Serbia's Dragoslav Stepanovic.
Ivankovic's salary at that time ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 USD/month. This amount was too large for the VFF at that time. In the end, Ivankovic could not come to work in Vietnamese football. VFF then chose Henrique Calisto, while Ivankovic moved to work for Shandong Luneng club (China).
Before Ivankovic, the Gulf region team was led by Pim Verbeek (Netherlands) from 2016 to 2019. Mr. Pim Verbeek was the number 1 assistant to coach Guus Hiddink of the Korean team at the 2022 World Cup. Mr. Pim Verbeek, along with coaches Park Hang-seo (current coach of the Vietnam national team) and Chung Hae-seong, greatly assisted Guus Hiddink to join the home team in the semi-finals of the 2002 World Cup.
After that, Mr. Pim Verbeek led both the Korean and Australian teams. In 2016, he was Oman coach, helping the team win the Gulf Cup in 2017. This is his only international title. At the 2019 Asian Cup, he helped the team make history when they passed the group stage for the first time. However, at the end of that year, he passed away after 4 years of fighting cancer.
