Doha: Vital Borkelmans is a positive guy who likes to emphasise over and over again that he is also a “happy coach”. Less than four months in the hot seat as coach of Jordan, the two-time Belgian World Cupper feels he has grown into the job and is brimming with confidence as he heads into his first AFC Asian Cup.



“Since I took over in September I have been trying a lot of things. My focus is on developing a system and so far I am very happy with the progress the team and I have made,” former Belgian international Borkelmans told the-AFC.com in an exclusive interview.

“The players have responded well to my methods. In fact, credit to them that they made my job of selecting the team very difficult!”



Borkelmans, who represented Belgium in the 1994 and 1998 World Cups and is coaching an Asian country for the first time, knows Jordan have been underachievers in football, a situation he thinks will change soon.

“People must have a lot of belief in the players. I have already seen good things happening in Jordan. Prince Ali (Jordan Football Association president Prince Ali bin Hussein) has been making good choices. Under him the teams have made a lot of progress and have achieved a lot of good results. Even the women’s teams are doing well.”

The 55-year-old former defender, whomade a whopping 348 appearances with Club Brugge apart from his stints with other clubs, says he has succeeded in developing a positive culture within the team.

This, he feels, will stand them in good stead, especially when they take on defending champions Australia in their first Group B match on January 6.

“You know we are playing a very famous team. They are, of course, the champions and have also played the World Cup many times. To start against them is actually a good thing for us.

“As far as I am concerned, the first, second and third games are all the same. Against Syria and Palestine later, I’ll have to say the teams know each other very well as they are from the same region. They are special.

“The team has a lot of positive spirit. I am a positive guy and I only talk positive to the players. It gives them confidence. I am a very happy coach.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t take it up with them when they go wrong.”

Jordan lost two friendly games in Doha – 2-0 against Qatar and 1-0 against Kyrgyz Republic – but the Belgian is only looking at the positive side.

“Against Qatar we had our chances. Especially in the second half, the boys put up an amazingly good performance.

“Against Kyrgyz Republic we had almost nine chances, but they scored from outside the box from the only chance they got in the last minute!”

Before that, Jordan defeated India 2-1, drew 1-1 with Saudi Arabia and lost 2-1 to Croatia in friendlies.

“I have used these matches to test systems and finalise player positions. For example, against India I used the 3-5-2 system, against Saudi Arabia I tested the 4-3-3 combination.”

The training camp in Qatar has helped the team a great deal, Borkelmans said.

“I like it here. I must thank the Qatar Football Association for giving us good facilities, especially good fields. The players are very happy to be training on such good pitches. We also got to play some good friendly matches, which has raised their confidence and self-belief.”


Source: the-afc.com