Kolkata : As Indian Football team is in desperate hunt for head coach role after parting ways with Manolo Marquez, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has received 170 applications for the role, which is considerably lower than 291 who applied for the same position it advertised last year.
The AIFF invited applications on July 4 after accepting Manolo Marquez’s resignation at its executive committee meeting on July 2. The AIFF has not revealed the list of applicants, but those in the know confirmed several names who have shown interest.
The list includes former Liverpool greats like Robbie Fowler and Harry Kewell, former Brazil U-17 coach Caio Zanardie and former Barcelona reserves manager Jordi Vinyals, who spent the last three years at Chinese Super League side Zhejiang Professional. Peter Segrt, former coach of Tajikistan, Maldives, and Afghanistan, has also applied for the role.
Among the more familiar names, there’s Stephen Constantine, who has managed more matches (73) than any other coach during his two stints with the national team. He took India to new heights during his reign. The English coach was last seen in India with East Bengal in 2022-23.
AIFF also received 2 big names of ISL winning head coaches – Spaniards Antonio Lopez Habas and Sergio Lobera, both among the more successful coaches in the top tier of Indian football. Among the home-grown coaches, Khalid Jamil, Sanjoy Sen and Santosh Kashyap top the list.
The AIFF will now go through the applications and prepare a long list. The new coach will have to take over the national team and boost its chances of making it to the AFC Asian Cup 2027.
The need of head coach is desperately needed for India owing to their dismal performances recently. After loss against Hong Kong in AFC Asian Cup 2027 qualifier round, India are crippled off major chances to qualify, With 4 games remaining, India must win all of them , including those against Singapore, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong.
