JERUSALEM, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv has appointed Vladimir Ivic as head coach on a two-year contract, the club said in a statement on Sunday.
This will be the second term of the 45-year-old Serb at Maccabi, after serving in the job for two seasons between 2018 and 2020, in which he led the club to two Israeli Premier League championship titles.
In the summer of 2020, he signed as head coach of Watford at the English Football League Championship, but was dismissed in mid-December of that year and has not coached since.
Since Ivic left Maccabi, the Israeli club has failed to win the Israeli championship, finishing in second and third places respectively, while Maccabi Haifa has won the title twice.
"I am looking forward to the challenge and I am focused on working hard to achieve our targets," Ivic said.
Ivic's coaching staff will see the return to Tel Aviv of his compatriot, assistant coach Milos Veselinovic, and the Greek goalkeeping coach Christos Kelpekis, who were both part of the coaching staff during the previous tenure, the statement said.
They will be joined by assistant coach Serbian-born Sinisa Gogic, who starred as a player in the Cypriot national team and coached in China, Greece and Cyprus. ■
