Petkovic to quit
Petkovic to quit
Also In The News
|
Wayne Rooney returned to England’s World Cup line-up far earlier than planned because his injury was not a conventional break to the metatarsal, according to an independent panel of doctors who supervised his treatment. |  |
Saturday, 17, Jun 2006 07:58
The Serbia and Montenegro coach Ilija Petkovic says that he will step down as team boss after the World Cup.
Petkovic refused to criticise his players after their 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Argentina.
The Argentine strikers barely seemed to notice the Serb defence as they cut through it with so much ease. This was the same defence that conceded only once in the entire qualifying campaign.
Petykovic described the performance yesterday as a debacle and insisted that he could not go on managing the team.
He said: "I disregarded my own principals and I'm sorry I didn't close down the defence.
"The atmosphere within the team wasn't good, as it always is when a team is losing matches. All teams at the World Cup sing their national anthem but ours is booed. It's hard to play in such an atmosphere."
Petkovic explained that the disunity within the former Yugoslavia contributed to the team’s poor performances as their own fans booed the anthem still associated with the communist regime.
Serbia and Montenegro cannot qualify for the knock-out stages after losing to Holland as well as Argentina. The final group game against Ivory Coast will be purely for pride.