South Melbourne have announced that Sinisa Cohadzic become the caretaker coach of the Senior men’s team. This will see Leigh Minopoulos and Tyson Holmes will return to their roles as assistant coaches and fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The appointment of Sinisa Cohadzic comes somewhat out of left field. He was not a name on anyone’s list and did not feature in any of the rumours after Estaban’s departure. However, he does have a history at the club which substantiates rumours about the club hiring from within their own network.

Who is Sinisa Cohadzic?

From 2019 to 2024 Cohadzic was the Technical Director at South. During this time he guided the reserves to the 2022 Championship. This previous role means that he is familiar with the club and many of the players in the Youth program and on the fringe of the Senior squad.

Cohadzic comes to the club after a stint as the Philippines National Women’s Team Assistant Coach, where he was also head coach of their U17 and U20 programs.

Cohadzic holds both a UEFA A Licence and an AFC Pro Licence.

Who missed out?

Durakovic, Lozanovski, and even Katsakis were rumoured to be chased for the role however none of them appeared to be strong favorites from the fans. Durakovic hasn’t coached in a while, Lozanovski is currently struggling with Altona in the NPL and the Katsakis rumour was squashed by the official South Melbourne Facebook page no less.

The fan favourite was clearly John Anastasiadis, however this was always going to be an unlikely signing considering his excellent current position as Heidelberg and rumours that South failed to meet his financial demands ahead of the season.

Other candidates rumoured either lacked the necessary NPL experience or were even potentially scared off by the challenge of reversing South’s fortunes in the League, considering the high stakes of relegation just as the Australian Championship is set to launch.

So what now?

Sinisa Cohadzic has one clear goal. Get the club out of the relegation scrap by the next transfer window. The transfer window in Round 20 means that the current squad will need results in the next eight games and new coach bounce is desperately needed to achieve that.

South doesn’t have the luxury of waiting until the transfer window to reverse their fortunes for a few reasons:

• It only leaves 6 games left in the season,
• The bottom 3 will be relegated this year which means a higher point tally will be required than usual, and
• 3 of the last four games are against top opposition (Oakleigh, Heidelberg and Avondale)

We need to get the job done soon, and with the current crop.

The other major reason South can’t wait until the window is because of the soon to be launched Australian Championship. Ideally South will need to use the Winter transfer window to sign new players ahead of the competition, as well as keep quality players on their list – which will be challenging if we were in a relegation role (would Lopez and Mells say no to Avondale if they came knocking)?

The wording around the announcement is interesting too. Sinisa Cohadzic has been named as the club’s ‘caretaker coach’ implying what many of us have thought… the club is holding its purse strings to spend big ahead of the Championship – potentially signing big name players and a big name coach.

In the past few weeks Minopoulos and Holmes have changed South’s play style to a simpler possession based game, Sinisa Cohadzic will need to build on this and get results fast.

Cohadzic’s goal is to get us out of relegation ahead of the transfer window, and set up the team for a permanent head coach ahead of the Championship.

Finally, is he a good pick?

Who knows? The major concern is that Sinisa Cohadzic has been a head coach at a high senior level. He knows the club, has won championships, is qualified, and has international experience, but that doesn’t mean he’ll save us from relegation.