Alstani In The House
In a possibly-ominous sign as to his future at the club, head coach
Eren Serpin introduced Romanian understudy
Dan Alstani today, with the 41 year-old fetching S$600000 for former Liga I runners-up GiuGiooKa. While GiuGiooKa might have fallen on relatively hard times of late, they have recovered from Division Six to Division Four in recent seasons, with Alstani heavily involved as assistant manager through the journey. With new head coach Rudolf Poiană taking the credit for their latest title in IV.45, however, Alstani's hopes for landing the role were all but extinguished - but this has perhaps been for the best, given that he is now in line to inherit an S-League-winning club.
Serpin divulged that he had been in close contact with Irish contender Ben Ferguson from janfreenk too, and that Ferguson's ideas on team organization were also complementary to the current Grilled setup. However, at 31 years of age, Ferguson was felt by some on the board to be a little too young for the responsibility, and he would leave for further polishing with Chilean giants Tono FC instead. This left Alstani as the frontrunner for the position of Serpin's right-hand man, which he has seemingly now won.
The popular Grilled head coach admitted that he might have been remiss in not cultivating potential replacements earlier, but given that he has just completed three years in charge - with an unprecedented trophy haul to boot - one senses that the fans could be understanding. "Alstani has ample practical experience with GiuGiooKa, he knows how to run a squad." Serpin stated. "And Grilled Birds have had a great experience with their last Romanian in charge, Niculae Stanca - he won the Singapore Cup too. There's really not much more I can teach him, and when the time comes, I know he will be able to hit the ground running."
Alstani, for his part, is of the increasingly-rare class of coaches not to have been involved with the professional game as a player, having first signed on to the newly-formed Juventus dGNY as an apprentice trainer. The club would go defunct within a month due to financial mismanagement, but Alstani had liked his taste of man-management, and would take up a post at GiuGiooKa. His progress was such that he had been earmarked by GiuGiooKa's supporters as one of the favourites to take over after eight seasons in various roles with them, but as previously explored, he had to leave in the end.
For now, Alstani has adopted the Number 89 jersey with his old Number 88 held by club mascot
Tim Hobson, and his next job will be to get to know the people at Grilled Birds, before getting down to business.
