Wellington Phoenix skipper and All Whites goalkeeper Oli Sail “can see the positives” if club coach Ufuk Talay was appointed to the national team coaching role as well.
“It’s been done before, hasn’t it, with Ricki (Herbert)?” Sail said when asked about Talay’s interest in taking on both jobs.
“When you align things, it has got its benefits, and I’m not going to speculate if he is going to get the job or not, but I can see the positives,
“There might be negatives too, that’s not for me to decide.
“But Uffy is a good coach. He understands the game extremely well tactically, so you’re certainly not going to lose anything getting Uffy as national team manager.”
Main photo: Oli Sail: “I can see the positives’.
Watch Sail’s media interview
Sail said he was sad to see Danny Hay leave the All Whites job.
“I thought he made massive improvements on the side in his tenure.
“At the end of the day, it’s NZ Football’s decision and they have got a plan for the next four years, hopefully, and I’m looking forward to seeing what it is.”
Phoenix ‘very keen to progress it with NZ Football’
Talay has expressed interest in the All Whites job left vacant by the impending departure of Hay but only if it could be combined with his role as head coach at the Phoenix.
Talay is off contract at the Phoenix at the end of the current A-League season and club general manager David Dome told Stuff discussions were already underway to try to keep him at the club.
Dome said the club would be “fully supportive” if there was a chance for Talay to have dual coaching roles.
“We’ve long been talking to NZ Football about the integration of our programmes and informally we’ve chatted to Uffy (about it) over the years, whether he would be interested if the opportunity came, because we’ve had the precedent with Ricki, and of course now there is an opportunity,” Dome said.
“We’re very keen to progress it with NZ Football. I’ve had an initial conversation with (NZ Football CEO) Andrew Pragnell, but we’ve left it with him because the role hasn’t officially opened yet.
“We said is this something that’s worth considering and he said they would be open to considering anything at this stage.
“But for us, we’ve done it in the past with Ricki and it was reasonably successful.”
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