KUALA LUMPUR: After making a sweep of all titles at stake in Malaysia football, Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) have recruited a top notch coach to help them excel at Asian level.
That person is former Argentina national Under-23 coach Esteban Solari.
Solari will take over from compatriot Hector Bidoglio who has been reassigned as the club's technical director while Alistair Edwards took up the JDT's chief executive post.
Solari is given the reins of the Southern Tigers following JDT owner Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim's announcement of a number of changes to elevate the team further.
"I somehow managed to convince him (Solari) to come here to continue the development and JDT football project. He is the little brother of Santiago Solari, who is with Real Madrid," said Tunku Ismail.
"We needed a coach with charisma, someone young, can demand respect (from the players), played in Europe and at the Champions League, who was a good player himself.
"What impressed me about him is his man management skills, to demand players to perform due to his qualification and experience where he helped the youth team win in 2020 and 2022."
Aside from the appointment of a new head coach, Tunku Ismail said the club will sign only one local player for next year as most of their senior players will go out on loan.
He said JDT will sign a Spaniard with an Asean passport, and get another striker who will most likely be from Brazil.
"We want to bring up youngsters who have potential like Feroz Baharudin, Arif Aiman Hanapi, Daryl Sham and two others from JDT II but we'll also be buying foreigners who are currently 80 per cent in talks and it will happen soon," said Tunku Ismail.