Jankovic appointed head coach of Chinese national football team

BEIJING -- The Chinese Football Association (CFA) announced on Friday that 50-year-old Serbian Aleksandar Jankovic has been appointed as the head coach of China's men's national team.

"To prepare for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup and 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers, the CFA decided, after the assessment of experts, to hire [Aleksandar] Jankovic as the new head coach of China's men's national team," read a CFA statement.

A former assistant manager of Serbia's under-21 team in the 2000s, Jankovic, who also had spells with several European clubs including Serbia's Red Star Belgrade and Belgium's Standard Liege, will make his debut on March 23 when China plays a friendly against New Zealand in Auckland.

The Serbian first joined China's U19 B team in September 2018 before taking charge of the reformed Chinese U23 squad in preparation for the postponed Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games.

He led a mostly U23 squad to the East Asian Football Championship in Japan last July, where his team finished third among four participating teams.

According to the CFA, Jankovic's compatriot Dejan Djurdjevic will take over his position as the head coach of the Chinese men's football team for Hangzhou 2022, which to be held in September.