Beijing Guoan sack Roger Schmidt with club in Chinese Super League title race – is any manager safe?

Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan have parted company with head coach Roger Schmidt.

The German’s sacking was expected. The Chinese Super League 2019 season Wikipedia page updated his departure for Lyon’s Bruno Genesio on Tuesday, while Chinese sports media carried their various obituaries of his time in Beijing on Wednesday morning. French radio broke the news.

He leaves the club with 10 games of the season left and the long-time league leaders four points behind table topping Guangzhou Evergrande. This is hardly a disaster.

The club are second to a team that has won 11 league games in a row, a new record and something that Guangzhou Evergrande never had to achieve during their seven titles in a row.

The fact that the Guangzhou side won most of those titles in a canter shows how competitive the league is this season, as does the fact that champions Shanghai SIPG are also four points back and they cannot be too displeased with their title defence.

What makes this decision odder still is that Guoan have been top of the table for 15 weeks, or three quarters of the season. The champions were top in the first three weeks, Evergrande have been top for the last three. This is impressive.

There have been highs this season, including a 10-game winning streak and beating Guangzhou Evergrande 1-0 away. Even then, on an eight-run win, Schmidt was pleading caution.

“Although we have an eight-game winning streak, every game has been difficult,” the coach said after the victory at Tianhe Stadium. Perhaps he knew he was making a rod for his own back by setting such a high bar?

Evergrande may now be in the driving seat but the title dream is far from over with 30 points to play for. What’s more, they are odds-on for finishing in the AFC Champions League spots and they are only just out of the Chinese FA Cup, which they won last season.

They are still to play the leaders in Beijing and there is a midseason break to put things right on the training pitch.

History tells them they are still in with a chance. Schmidt’s side were leaders at the 20-game mark last season, too. Shanghai SIPG won despite being second, while third place Evergrande finished runners-up. Guoan ended up fourth.

They slipped into second and now third but they are missing arguably their most important player, Jonathan Viera, who is out injured. Add to that the blip leading up to Schmidt’s departure was back-to back defeats– they have lost just four times in the league this season – and this looks like a reactionary decision from the board.

That, of course, is nothing new in the Chinese top flight.

The former Bayer Leverkusen and RB Salzburg boss was the second longest-serving head coach in the CSL and he has only just marked two years in the job.

The longest serving in the CSL is Guangzhou R&F’s Dragan Stoijkovic, who started his tenure in 2015, and he is rumoured to be replaced.

This culture of instability is not unique to China. South American coaches seem never to be more than three bad results from the sack and there is a reason the English media coined the term “managerial merry-go-round” but the Chinese coaching carousel is becoming a league of its own.

There were eight changes last season, 10 if you include caretakers, and that goes up to 17 including the managers who moved on in preseason. This season is little different: there were five changes in preseason and there have been seven since the season started, most recently Rafael Benitez and Roberto Donadoni. There are only 16 clubs in the CSL.

Even league-leading Fabio Cannavaro is in his second spell at Evergrande. He only lasted six months the first time around.

Schmidt had only six months on his contract and Genesio is reported to have taken that over rather than sign for any longer. That might mean the Beijing board have a big name in mind for next season, or it might mean they have no succession plan at all. It would have surely made more sense for him to see out his deal, even if they were happy to let him walk in the winter?

One thing is for sure, there have been no murmurs of discontent apart from the odd fan demanding his sacking after they lose a game and listening to those voices is no way to run a football club.

When they signed him the announcement was a perfect fit. “The club believes Mr Schmidt has an advanced football concept, a rigorous work ethic and is good at encouraging and developing young players, which matches the club’s needs perfectly.”

Schmidt saw them to ninth place in 2017, then a title challenge and cup win in his first full season. He leaves with a 56 per cent win rate, despite inheriting a struggling team. It makes you wonder what exactly the club’s needs are now? Do they even know?