Indian Super League: FC Pune City appoint Ranko Popovic as manager

Pune: Indian Super League franchise FC Pune City on Monday appointed former Real Zaragoza manager Ranko Popovic as the manager of the team, replacing former manager Antonio Lopez Habas.

The 50-year-old Serbian, who will be associated with the competition for the first time, has previously managed Austrian club FC Arnfels, Japanese clubs FC Tokyo, Cezero Osaka among others.

The new manager expressed his happiness ahead of the new ISL season.

 “I am delighted to be joining FC Pune City. The people at the club, their vision and their values together with the opportunity to develop and build this team to its full potential made this an offer that was difficult to turn down. I can’t wait to get started,” he said.

Gaurav Modwel, CEO of FC Pune City, also spoke on the same.

“In Ranko, we have a manager with distinguished coaching career spanning 15 years. His successful stints in different leagues vastly differing in cultural environment and football ecosystem, especially in Asia, makes him very relevant for a Club like ours. Ranko is multilingual and believes strongly in developing youth players", he said.

  “Spending time with him in Pune, I was impressed with his depth of knowledge of the game, motivation to succeed and ability to seamlessly work with our Indian staff,” he stated.

The new season of the Indian Super League will kick off on November 17, and will go on for four months, concluding in March. FC Pune city will host Delhi Dynamos at home on November 22 at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium here.