Dubai: Former Japan and AC Milan boss Alberto Zaccheroni was confirmed as the new UAE coach late on Monday, replacing Edgardo Bauza.
A series of tweets from the UAE Football Association (UAE FA) broke the news and said he would be unveiled to the media on Tuesday. It came just 48 hours after he arrived in the UAE on Saturday to begin talks.
The 64-year-old Italian, who also managed Lazio, Inter and Juventus, was on a three-man shortlist to replace Bauza alongside Peru coach Ricardo Gareca and Honduras boss Jorge Luis Pinto.
Peru and Honduras both made play-offs for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, which will only be completed by November 15, so the UAE FA decided to move on Zaccheroni because he was immediately available.
He replaces Bauza, who left the UAE last month, after just three competitive games in charge, to coach Saudi Arabia.
The former Argentina coach had failed in a late bid to qualify the UAE for the 2018 World Cup after replacing Mahdi Ali in May. He then left in September to replace Bert van Marwijk, who had already qualified Saudi for the World Cup but didn’t want to renegotiate a new deal.
Zaccheroni won the Scudetto with AC Milan in 1999, also picking up Serie A Coach of the Year for his efforts that season. He then went on to lift the Asian Cup with Japan in 2011. It is that Asian Cup winning pedigree that the UAE will hope to benefit from as the country hosts the next tournament in 2019.
