Pablo Zabaleta has been named as an assistant to fellow Manchester City icon Sylvinho for the Albanian national team.
Zabaleta was called upon by his former teammate as they look to create a joint Argentine and Brazilian coalition in order to help Albania qualify for future major tournaments.
During his nine-year stay with the Etihad club, Zabaleta developed into one of the best right-backs in world football, whilst getting his hands on two Premier League titles, one each of the FA Cup and the League Cup.
Zabaleta will hope to repeat the success he enjoyed with City in his new role as the assistant manager of Albania.
A statement from the Albanian Football Association read: “Albania has reached an agreement with coach Sylvio Mendes Campos Junior to take over the leadership of our national team.
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“Known to the public as Sylvinho, [he] has selected Pablo Zabaleta and the Brazilian Dorival Guidoni Junior [Doriva] as his assistants. The agreement between the AFL and the new staff headed by Sylvinho foresees an 18-month duration until the end of Euro 2024 and the financial aspect will be based on the results and the achievement of the objectives.
“The agreement has at its core the achievement of the only objective that Albania has in these qualifiers, the qualification for the finals of Euro 2024.
“In the event of the achievement of the objective, it has been agreed that the coach and his staff will benefit from significant bonuses.”
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It will be a tough task for Sylvinho and Zabaleta as Albania have only ever qualified for one major tournament. They successfully qualified for the 2016 Euro but were knocked out in the group stage, though they did finish with the same amount of points as eventual winners Portugal.
In order to gain passage to the 2024 Euro, they would have to fend off Poland, Czech Republic, the Faroe Islands and Moldova.
Topics: Manchester City, Football, Euro 2024
Marcus Chan