Football: Manolo Marquez named India’s new head coach, will continue with FC Goa for a year

FC Goa coach Manolo Marquez will be the next Indian national men’s team head coach while continuing to manage the Indian Super League side simultaneously for another year. After the next year, the Spaniard will take up the Indian job full-time. The All-India Football Federation executive committee, in a meeting on Saturday at the AIFF Football House, made the decision keeping in mind AIFF’s financial status.

“Manolo was the ideal choice because he has worked with many of the young Indian players who are a part of the national team. He can take younger overlooked players and make them good. He works with Indian players day in and out in the ISL, and there is a lot of respect these young players have for him,” an AIFF official told The Indian Express.

While this will be Marquez’s first job as an international team coach, he has had top-flight club experience with Las Palmas in the La Liga where he was coach in 2017. Last season, Marquez’s Goa finished third in the ISL and pushing Mumbai City FC and Mohun Bagan, who finished narrowly above them, despite vastly bigger budgets and better foreign talent.

Manolo Marquez appointed head coach of Senior Men’s National Team!

Read full details here 👉🏻 https://t.co/iUUMAwB8vk#IndianFootball ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/Ni9beyul8B

— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) July 20, 2024

One of the reasons Marquez’s appointment was solidified was due to the AIFF and FC Goa coming to an agreement that the 55-year-old would be coaching the Goan ISL team during the club season, and take up national coach duties during FIFA windows and off-season.

Over the past few years, the AIFF’s budget has been slashed and the costs of managing the national team along with the football ecosystem in India has brought about a fund crunch for the national footballing body. One of the reasons for Manolo’s hiring, instead of exploring other options like former Vietnam manager Park Hang-seo, was due to these reasons. There was also a consensus that India came close to qualifying for the third round of the World Cup qualifiers and there was a need for a coach who would take these existing players to the next level.

“This season he’s going to be in a dual role, and next season onwards he’ll be with Indian football full time. A few of the people who had applied were outside our pay structure. Also, we needed someone with Indian experience. We didn’t have the time for a coach to come and take a few months to take stock of where Indian football is,” said the official. “There are a lot of cases of club coaches also managing countries. Even Igor Stimac would only be in India during FIFA windows or national camps. Most of the time, players are not available to the international team coaches.”

Marquez is widely regarded as one of the better coaches in the ISL. The Spaniard has coached two ISL teams in Hyderabad FC and FC Goa during his four-year-long coaching stint at Indian clubs and has a track record of having developed young Indian players at the club level — players who have then gone on to represent the national team.

His record as a coach during this time made him a top prospect for the national team job. With Hyderabad, Marquez enjoyed taking a young team of Indian players to the top of the league. At the time, Hyderabad went through a string of injuries to key foreign as well as Indian players. Many of the top Indian players today, like Akash Mishra, and Chinglensana Singh were part of that Hyderabad team that performed above expectations under Marquez, winning the ISL Cup in 2021-22.

Marquez thanked both organisations for being flexible in his hiring. “I am very grateful to FC Goa for allowing us the flexibility to help the national team during the coming season while I am still the club’s head coach. I’m grateful to the AIFF for this opportunity and we hope to do great things for football,” Marquez said in a statement.

The executive meeting also ratified the new General Secretary of the AIFF. On the recommendation of AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey, Kerala Football Association General Secretary Anilkumar Prabhakaran was handed the reins for the position. The AIFF also said that Prabhakaran had resigned from the executive committee and other sub-committees ahead of his new role.

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