Emilio De Leo has promised an aggressive and attractive style of play for the Malta national team as the newly-installed coach was presented to the media on Tuesday.
De Leo was named as Malta’s new national coach on Monday and will fill the void left by Michele Marcolini who was sacked from his post last September.
De Leo will start his tenure as Malta coach on February 1 and his first job will be to guide the national team during the World Cup qualifiers where they will be up against Spain or the Netherlands, Finland, Poland and Lithuania.
Speaking to the media, De Leo, the former assistant coach of Sinisa Mihajlovic at Bologna and the Serbian national team, could not hide his excitement at the start of his new journey.
“First of all I would like to thank the Malta FA, particularly the president, who has been showing a lot of admiration towards my work for a long period now,” De Leo said.
“It is a great responsibility to be handed the job of Malta national coach. I don’t think we need to start afresh as in my opinion there have been some excellent national team coaches before me and we need to exploit all the good work that has be done.
“The approach needs to be serious and of a modern team that only focuses on trying to grow as a group and try to consolidate our attitudes and our abilities but on the other hand continuously move our objectives to even higher goals and that will be our main responsibility.
“It is important that the group understands that we need to become a team with great character who does not fear to be aggressive to win back the ball and adopt different approaches during a game. Having a flexible approach is our main objective.”
De Leo made it clear that the national team needs the backing of their fans throughout their journey which starts with the World Cup qualifiers in March.
“My promise to the Maltese fans is that the team will be giving more than 100 per cent in terms of effort on the pitch,” he said.
“We are desperately in need of the backing of our fans. The players need to bring their technical ability but simultaneously transmit emotions to the general public, who on their part must showcase their emotions to the team.
“We will offer to our fans a team that is ready to give everything on the pitch and interpret matches with a modern approach and I am sure that the fans will appreciate it.”
Asked to indicate what the fans should expect in terms of style of play, De Leo made it clear that he wants to entertain the fans.
“For me, football is a form of arm and is a great instrument to generate emotions to those who are watching it,” De Leo said.
“My goal is to try and keep alive this great passion for the Beautiful Game and provide a very attractive style of play so that everyone can enjoy themselves.
“Obviously, there are going to be a number of challenges that we will have to overcome as we are facing a very challenging World Cup qualifying campaign which gets under way in less than two months.
“Obviously we don’t have a lot of time to work with the players so in the beginning it will be important for the players to understand how to interpret different situations of the game and slowly we will work on the way we want to play.
“Obviously, there will be difficult times for the team but the most important thing is to know how to react and go again.
“Our team will be based on the players’ talent and together we need to fuel the passion of all stakeholders towards the national team.”
Selection process
Malta FA president Bjorn Vassallo said that the MFA had started its process of finding a new national team coach at the end of November when the contracts of the interim coaches came to an end.
“After the November internationals we sat down and drew a shortlist of candidates for the post of national team head coach, which would also serve a technical director, his supporting staff, Under 21 coach and a technical co-ordinator at grassroots level,” Vassallo said.
“We set up an advisory panel, which included a former national team coach, an ex-national team player as well as a foreign counsellor who boasts a vast experience.
“Once the final list was made we asked every candidate to submit a presentation to show how they plan to reach the technical objectives that we have set as an association.
“This was a similar process to the one used by the English FA when they appointed Thomas Tuchel and I was very pleased that all was done with a great level of transparency and in the end the choice fell on Emilio De Leo.
“De Leo will also be assisted by Pietro Matafora, who will also give his expertise in our grassroots, and former player Mirco Valdifiori. ż
“At the end of the season, we will look to appoint technical co-ordinator that will be working in our Technical Centre.”
Vassallo said that De Leo has been on the MFA’s radar for some time and he feels that this was the right time for the Italian coach to start his work as the Malta national team coach.
“Emilo De Leo is a well-known coach in Italy that enjoys great respect in his country,” Vassallo said.
“He is a very young coach with a very modern approach and who has managed to reach a lot of objectives in his career and boasts a lot of experience at international level.
“I have no doubt that he will be a great fit in our technical set-up and can help us reach the objectives set by the MFA, which are promotion in the Nations League as well as helping the national team to climb the FIFA rankings.”
Malta will open their World Cup qualifying campaign on March 21 with a home game against Finland before travelling to Poland three days later
