New football coach reaches Dhaka

Dhaka, June 24 (bdnews24.com) ? New coach of Bangladesh national football team Macedonian Nikola Ilievski has reached Dhaka.

On his arrival on Friday afternoon, Ilievski told reporters: "Aggressive football is my philosophy as it's a goal making game. It's never possible to score goal without playing aggressively."

He is scheduled to sign a deal with the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) on Saturday and start working immediately.

Admitting that he has not enough idea about Bangladesh, Ilievski, who will take charge of the Bangladesh team ahead of their FIFA World Cup pre-qualifiers, said: "I've no idea even about football in the subcontinent. I've never watched any match of Bangladesh football team."

A BFF official, seeking anonymity, said the new coach might be paid US$ 72,000 a year.

Ilievski, a former national footballer of Yugoslavia, played the 1982 World Cup in Spain. He was also a national coach of Macedonia from 2002 to 2003 and guided his team to the Euro qualifiers.

Ilievski started his coaching career as an assistant coach of FK Rabotnicki in 1989-1990. He took a local club, FK Pebeda, to the UEFA Cup in 2000 and helped the club win Macedonian Cup in 2001-02 and Macedonian First Division title in 2003-04.

FK Pebeda also became runners-up of Slovenian Cup in 2005-06 under his guidance.

After the departure of Croat coach Robert Rubcic over a row about unpaid wages, BFF on June 15 named Macedonian Gjorgji Jovanovski, four-time coach of the year of Macedonia, as the new football coach of Bangladesh national team.

Later, his compatriot Ilievski was named as the new coach as Jovanovski expressed his inability to take the responsibility of Bangladesh football team.

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