Bernd Stange has been hired as Singapore's head coach, the latest in a long list of football appointments for the well-traveled German.
The reigning Southeast Asian champions searched for three months before deciding on the 65-year-old Stange, who has coached national teams in the former East Germany, Oman, Iraq and Belarus, and club teams across Europe and in Australia.
Stange signed a two-year deal and promises to lift the 165th-ranked Singapore to the next level, saying: ''With the experience of 129 official national team matches all over the world in the biggest stadiums, in Wembley, in France, in Hampton Park, Maracana ... I think I can deliver a lot.''
Stange attended a news conference late Wednesday to confirm he'd taken over from Radojko Avramovic, who quit after guiding Singapore to victory in the last regional championship.
He said he wasn't daunted by another move to Asia.
''I have coached so many teams in countries with different political systems, and in East Germany . even a Sultanate and clubs in democracies like Australia or Germany, and even Ukraine and Cyprus,'' Stange was quoted as saying. ''These are all different systems, but don't forget that you have to put the ball in the net, and everywhere it is the same.
''My job is football and to try to win matches, which is the most important thing.''
