November 8th, year 2003. It's the 40th minute of the deciding game between Croatia and Hungary, group 8 of the Chinese Taipei World Cup (UEFA) Qualifiers: the winner will face Italy in the play-off battle. Magyar legend Szabolcs Toth scores the 7th goal of Hungary, no more hope for the croatian crowd in Gospic. That also meant the end of the Mato Stankovic's era on the Croatian bench and the beginning of the Mico Martic's one. But sometimes "past" becomes present again, and that's definitely the case of Croatia: the local futsal committee has appointed Mato Stankovic as new head coach!

After the "argued appointment" (click here for more details) and the "ghost experience" lived by the portuguese trainer Tiago Polido on the Croatian bench (he has actually never worked with the Croatian national team since his appointment on past December 2009), the local futsal committee leaded by Boris Durlen has decided to jump back of seven years, with Mladen Perica keeping up his good work on the Under 21 bench, which recently conquered the four nations tournament Città Di Policoro in Italy (click here to know more on the event).

Mato Stankovic will then guide Croatia in the great experience offered by hosting the next UEFA Futsal Championships 2012, something that will at least avoid the "qualifiers Czech nightmare" experienced by the previous Martic's management. We have to remind that Stankovic was recently (until November 2009) in charge of the Libyan National Team, getting brilliant results and also taking part in the Brazil 2008 World Cup.




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com