THE former Danish footballer, coach and manager and the current head coach of the Papua New Guinea national men’s football team says Pacific players are skilful just like European players.
Flemming Seritslev made this statement yesterday when responding to media query on how he can distinguish the standard of football in the Pacific compared to where he came from (Denmark).
“The players here (Solomon Islands and PNG) are even skillful as European players but their conditions for developing is very different from the European, South American and even Asian players,’’ he said.
He said what he discovered from our leagues, they are only run for limited months compared to other elite football confederations.
“In most other confederations you will see that they are playing at least 10 months,’’ he said.
“That means the physical implication of the players in my opinion is natural and cannot be as good as it is for example Europe , South America and Asian players,’’ he said.
He added, in his squad as well as Moses Toata’s squad there are bulk of skillful players.
“But I also totally accepts the conditions that we are working on, Moses in Solomon Islands and I in PNG that the infrastructure demands a lot of extra money to keep a championship running over for example 10 months,’’ he said.
“At the moment at least in PNG no clubs are available to have funds for 10 months competition.
“It’s very much a pity for the players, you might have the more or less condition here,’’ he said.
Seritslev, 69 had a wealth of experience in coaching as he himself was a former Danish footballer, coach and manager.
According to his Biography, Serritslev played most of his career for Vejle Boldklub in a very successful period. Thus, Serritslev was part of a team that won the Danish championship in 1972 and the Danish Cup in 1972, 1975 and 1977.
As manager Flemming Serritslev ensured Danish side B1909 a place in the best Danish league in 1990. In 1992 he became assistant manager of the Danish national team before he went on to become head coach of the Danish U21 team.
In 2006 Serritslev returned to his childhood club Vejle as sports manager. However, Serritslev and the new board at the club could not work together and Serritslev left Vejle Boldklub only six month after his appointment.
On 1 July 2010, he was appointed as technical manager of Mes Kerman in Iran Pro League and also head coach of Mes B.
On 25 August 2011, after the resignation of Mes head coach Samad Marfavi, he was appointed as caretaker manager of club but was replaced with Miroslav Blažević without managing team in any match.
On 23 November 2015 he became the new manager of the Papua New Guinea national football team.
By CROFTON UTUKANA
