MOSCOW, July 1 (RIA Novosti) - A year to the day after taking over at Chelsea, Luiz Felipe Scolari began life on Wednesday as the trainer of Uzbek champions Bunyodkor.
Scolari lasted just over eight months at Stamford Bridge before being dismissed over a run of poor results. He agreed a deal to manage the ambitious and wealthy Bunyodkor last month.
"My contract with Bunyodkor is for one-and-a-half years, although it can be extended by mutual agreement for another year," Scolari told journalists at his first training session.
Bunyodkor hit the headlines last summer when they mounted an audacious bid for Barcelona star Samuel Eto'o. Although the move was initially dismissed as a publicity stunt, the Cameroonian apparently took the offer of a $30 million fee spread over a two-year contract seriously enough to make a trip to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, for talks.
In the end, Eto'o returned to Spain, and the Uzbek side's ambitions to nab a world star looked to have been thwarted. However, Bunyodkor had other plans, and in August the club announced that they had signed the 1999 World and European Footballer of the Year, Rivaldo, from AEK Athens. Shortly afterwards, Brazilian midfield legend Zico was named as manager.
However, even the renowned Brazilians couldn't help Bunyodkor achieve their ambition of regional glory, the side losing out to Adelaide United in the semifinals of the 2009 Asian Champions League.
With Zico's stay in Uzbekistan having been cut short by his November move to CSKA Moscow, Scolari promised to try to help the club realize its dream, and also boost football in the former Soviet republic.
"Bunyodkor have a very high rating in world football," Scolari said. "I'm making it my goal to raise football in Uzbekistan even higher."
The trainer also said that he was learning both Russian and Uzbek to help him in his new position.
"When I worked in England, I could communicate freely enough in English. Russian will be a bit harder for me, but I'll know elementary words in both Russian and Uzbek in two months," he said.
Until last summer, Scolari's new club went by the name of Kuruvchi, or "builder." The team was created in 2005 by a local energy company to enable its construction workers to, as the official Bunyodkor website puts it, "attend games, relax, and get rid of stress at weekends." As the side's status grew, it was felt that Bunyodkor, or "creator," better reflected the club's ambitions, and the name change was subsequently announced to unsuspecting fans at a home game.
Bunyodkor are financed by the Uzbek energy company Neftgazmontaj, and boasts a number of other local energy firms as sponsors. Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, is rumored to be the side's greatest supporter.
