No gold stars for Red Star! Zenga new boss of Red Star Belgrade BELGRADE, July 21 (Reuters) - Serbian club Red Star Belgrade say former Italy goalkeeper Walter Zenga is to become their new head coach, replacing Ratko Dostanic. Red Star president Dragan Stojkovic said a deal would be signed next week with Zenga, who was fired from his post as coach of Romanian club Steaua Bucharest in May. 'I will sign a two-year contract with Zenga on July 28 in Belgrade, when the team returns from the training camp in Austria. He will take over the team from Dostanic tomorrow,' Stojkovic told Belgrade daily Politika on Thursday. Zenga coached National Bucharest for one and a half seasons in 2002-2003 and took over Steaua last July. He won 58 caps for Italy from 1986 to 1992 and played in the World Cup in 1986 and 1990, when he was voted world's best goalkeeper. 'Zenga is a coach whose authority can bring a positive push for the club and the team which need changes in all segments,' Stojkovic told sports daily Zurnal. Red Star's 2004-05 season was one of its worst in years. They lost the league title to bitter city rivals Partizan and the cup final to outsiders Zeleznik Belgrade. They also made an undignified exit from Europe, suffering a 7-3 aggregate drubbing from PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League third qualifying round and then losing their UEFA Cup first round tie with Zenit St Petersburg 6-1 over two legs. Red Star's board of directors resigned en masse in late May and long-serving president Dragan Dzajic, a former Red Star stalwart who led the Serbian club to their 1991 European Cup triumph, quit for health reasons. He was replaced in July by Dragan 'Piksi' Stojkovic, one of Serbia's most famous footballers who made his mark as a midfielder for Red Star, Olympique Marseille and J-League's Nagoya Grampus Eight. He pledged to restore Red Star's fortunes with a five-year programme that would turn the team around. 'Zenga is a great name in world football (great name, great player, lousy coach, certifiable personality), we expect to work well with him,' Red Star captain Marko Pantelic told Blic daily.
Jesus, if they're expecting Zenga to crack the whip, I hope they realize that he might just bend over and enjoy a few lashings from whomever his young, nubile "chippie of the moment" is. The Magpie
Another link: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20....ap.eu.spt.soc.red.star.coach.0187/index.html "After finishing his illustrious goalkeeping career, Zenga coached National and Steaua in the Romanian league." How could they leave out his time with the REVS?!?!?!
BF: Is the parenthetical statement your $.02? Seriously, is there anyone on this board who knows what kind of coach Zenga is at this point? If we were to judge every coach by their first shot at it, wouldn't we be judging Nicol by Nott's County results?
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade. He often said things are better left unspoken, but I, on the contrary, prefer to keep it all out in the open. I suspect Big Frank would agree with me that true Revolution is just a T-shirt away. Cheers, "Red"
[QUOTE="Red" Foley]I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade. He often said things are better left unspoken, but I, on the contrary, prefer to keep it all out in the open. [/QUOTE] Say, do you drive a Mitsubishi Zero?
Heck, why shouldn't Zenga have done well as our coach? He had Harkes, Stumpy, Geo, Babba, Go-loser, Gori, Dunseth, Burns and many other world class (please note typed in lower case) players to mold into a winning side. Heck, with what he had to work with he should have won the triple.
No, Red drives one of those three-wheeled cars they used to have in the UK about 15 years ago, but stopped making them because they were too dangerous to control. Well, those of us who closely followed the team in those years would agree that it doesn't come close to the 2005 team, but they should have done better than they did. For whatever reason, the teams always seemed to under-achieve. The 1998 team actually had some decent players, but when Rongen left the team in mid-season to go to France as Steve Sampson's assistant (who ever heard of a coach leaving his team?), it became that much harder to get players (other than Joe-Max) to run through a brick wall "for the good of the team." Tom
I don't think the Revs ever had even an "average" roster until the last few years. Let's be honest, those guys stunk. We never had the kind of impact foreign player that was the bread and butter of the contending MLS teams back then and our USNT players were not really impact players (Lalas previously, Burns and JMM). Here's out '98 team: Raul Diaz Arce - quality finisher, nice season. Joe-Max Moore - 7 goals in a 32 game season, if he's your 2nd leading scorer ... Edwin Gorter - injured and/or slow - when your most creative player is stuck on D, ... Imad Baba - afraid to go forward Mike Burns - competent defensively, couldn't shoot within a time zone of the goal Ivan McKinley - tough, but slow, lots of cards, temper often took him out of matches Johnny Torres - seemed to have lots of tools, just couldn't seem to find the goal Ted Chronopoulos - 2g, 3a - ouch! Jair - nice lookin player, but 8 starts, 3g, 1a Paul Keegan - popular, but only a hard-working, journeyman Richard Goulooze - slowest player in the league? Needed a LOT more from int'l. Manny Motajo - Did he really play in 15 games? Carlos Rocha - non-factor Jamar Beasley - 49 minutes (total, not average)! David Nakhid - nice player, but 0g 0a, 12 starts, not exactly Etcheverry or Valderrama-like Janusz Michallik - part-time, role player Damian - non-factor Dahir Mohammed - non-factor Brian Dunseth - mistake-prone Jesse Van Saun - non-factor Tom McLaughlin - more of a non-factor Ian Feuer - I always like him - better reach than AB Jeff Causey - didn't play much
Do any of the under 20 gang on this Board know what Jesse did while playing for the Revs that makes him famous?
He reacted the same way that I do when I agree with something that you have posted! BTW, Zenga was a lunatic, completely ill-suited to be a coach and not even the Doc and legion of top shrinks could ever straighten him out. His "coaching career" since the Revos has included beng sacked by the quivalent of an Italian pub team that actually began to much play better during one of his lengthly suspensions and getting into all sorts of trouble in Romania with charges of stealing the girlfriend of wealthy patron, who then allegedly planted drugs on him at a restaurant while turning him into police from his cell phone a few tables away. Made for a funny story in When Saturday Comes if anyone still has that issue.
....damn, I was just going to answer this, then I saw the "under 20 gang" stipulation. Help, help... age discrimination! The Magpie
Right here. I was gonna leave this thread alone, cause I always liked Zenga, but I couldn't argue he was a good coach. I was too young to give a damn about the coach. If we won, yay, if we lost, oh well. I could name two-thirds of the starting lineup, but that was it. Oh, and the obligatory spell-checking. The chalice would be full of espresso. But I think that the way some of you guys are talking, it'd be full of hemlock.
i agree with you in certain instances and i know you did 98, but zenga wasnt the only terrible coach, it was all of them and on top of the terrible coaching was bad player moves so im gonna cover a few of them now youre missing quite a few players here but they didnt stay on the roster long either like ariel graziani, otto addo, and the cape verdean d mid whose name i forget which they then replaced with the terrible rocha those were top class players, the trouble is... we never used them well enough same with jair, and jamar beasley and then they wasted their time with savarse, etc. for defense chrono was just as good as heaps/franchino are now dunseth got the bad rep because of his girlish looks, but hes an ok defender but burns was never that great, just an avg player, but local and ivan mckinley was a hot-head that always f--ked us over in the mid, we never had one, it was always forgotten the trouble with MLS for all those years, was the typical american model of sport offense v defense, and nothing existed between what we needed to do was to take advantage of the open style of play and go with a 3-5-2, with 2 d mids and a creative player gorter was great, but had to spend too much time defending, because we never used a solid d mid it was the same trouble with mauricio wright he isnt a sweeper, no matter what anybody tells you he is a d-mid, and should have been used as such otto addo and we also lacked a true striker, like twellmen is now joe-max not to take anything away from him, was a withdrawn forward he would pouch on chances, but he needed forwards in front of him let's also not forget he left us high and dry for england diaz arce is terrible, he capitalized on dc's overwhelming talent keegan blew, people liked him solely because he was local and irish torres blows, still does in MISL and the old decrepid goulouze didnt belong here in the first place so what they shouldve done was this, a 3-5-2 GK= Jeff Causey (feuer and sommer wouldve done as well) Left Center Back= Mike Burns (found/traded for a better player) Center Back (stopper)= Dan Calichman (unfortunately retired) Right Center Back= Brian Dunseth Left Defensive Midfielder= Paulo dos Santos Right Defensive Midfielder= Otto Addo(later wright) Left Flank= Jair (replaced by Imad Baba, later harkes or better option) Rright Flank=Teddy Chronopolous Creative Midfielder= Edwin Gorter(subbed out, and replaced by Jair) Left Forward (withdrawn)= Joe-Max Moore (graziani in joe-max's absence) Right Forward= Jamar Beasley (needed for sub, a replacement forward who could be used regularly a center back for calichman's departure a true left flank)