Israeli coach Eli Guttman has expressed interest in becoming the next manager of the Macedonian national team.
The official website of the Football Federation of Macedonia (FFM) announced today that another foreign coach has expressed interest in the vacant manager position with the latest name being well known Israeli coach Eli Guttman. He last managed Hapoel Tel Aviv but left the club earlier this year after winning the Israeli Cup. Despite being 53 years old, Guttman has managed for a long time with the majority of his time in Israel although he did have two brief stints with Cypriot clubs Enosis Neon Paralimni from 2004 to 2006 and AEL Limassol in early 2007 before he left for Hapoel Tel Aviv where he managed until 2011 but he decided to leave the team earlier this year.
After the last article that we wrote about the manager position, certain things have changed regarding the potential candidates. Gjoko Hadzievski, who was considered the favorite to take over, is no longer an option as he accepted to become a manager with a team in Saudi Arabia. Hadzievski said he couldn’t wait anymore and since he didn’t receive any signals about his standing, he decided to pursue work elsewhere. Lately, the buzz has been that German coach Klaus Augenthaler is the favorite to take over and several Macedonian newspapers have even reported his rumored salary of 10,000 euros per month.
The belief is that the FFM president Hari Hagi-Risteski wants to hire a foreign coach this time and the addition of Guttman will make the race more interesting. Other foreign coaches still in play are Ćiro Blažević and Diya Doğan. FFM gave a deadline of 15 July 2011 as to the latest the manager would be named but that now seems unlikely as the search will probably be prolonged into next week with the new potential candidate in Guttman.