Foreign managers to increase Chinese Super League standing in Football?

The Chinese Super League (CSL) continues to expand as heavy investment increases, and with this, football club owners across the country are looking to highly accomplished individuals within the game to lead their clubs into a new era.

Boss team manager Carlo Ancelotti FC Bavaria Munich observed The Players Training FC Bavaria Munich Football Champions League 11 09 2017 Munich Bavaria Germany. [Photo: VCG/ChristianxKolbertx]

Former Bayern Munich winger Marco Basler has claimed that Carlo Ancelotti will leave his post as manager of the German champions in January to move to a Chinese club, he would be joining a long list of highly successful managers to have taken up a new venture in the Far East by doing so.

When the Super League was conceived in 2004, there was little suggestion that managers such as Manuel Pellegrini, Fabio Capello and Sven Goran-Eriksson would go on to compete against each other in the division, and if recent murmurings are anything to go by, things are about to get a whole lot more exciting for CSL followers.

Gustavo Poyet, the former Sunderland and Brighton manager was effectively forced into a resignation on Sunday after another defeat for Shanghai Shenhua, which left them in 12th position with 6 games remaining, a far cry from last season’s 4th position.

This has left the door open for a highly lucrative club to appoint a new leader, and former Barcelona manager Luis Enrique, a champions league winning coach, has been made favorite to take the reins.

The spending power CSL clubs bestow is undoubtedly having a huge effect on their decision making, making it broader and opening avenues to these highly accredited individuals in the game.

With former managers from the El Clasico clubs (Real Madrid and Barcelona) in Manuel Pellegrini, Carlo Ancelotti and Luis Enrique potentially all being involved with CSL teams next season, the league is set to become a whole lot more remunerative for the league's bosses, and engaging for football followers.

It could be very similar to the English Premier League in this respect, where former Madrid manager Jose Mourinho is at Manchester United, just a few miles away from Pep Guardiola, former Barcelona manager, who currently heads Manchester City.

The influence of Barcelona and Real Madrid cannot be underestimated in the footballing world and seeing their former managers potentially making up a great deal of the CSL managers is a significant step to seeing the league look to establish itself amongst the biggest.

The MLS in the USA has always been the league where aging football players such as Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, and Thierry Henry go to retire, but the CSL is seemingly the preferred destination for managers, as the MLS has certainly not seen this type of influx.

Foreign coaches have always been prominent in Chinese football, but with two managers in Carlo Ancelotti and Luis Enrique potentially joining, who could easily secure themselves moves to other strong clubs in Europe, this represents something different.

Two world class managers joining the Chinese League in the peak of their powers and with lofty ambitions, this would be a trailblazer for the Chinese league, and with managers now more experimental than ever, gaining achievements in a continent other than Europe is becoming a more enticing ambition.