Khalid Jamil: From retiring at 29 to being first Indian football coach in 13 years, the Kuwait-born midfielder has come a long way
After more than a decade of persisting with the foreign coach theory, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) appointed Khalid Jamil as the new coach of Indian men's football team on Friday (August 1). He will be the first native coach for the side since 2012 when Savio Maderia was at the helm of things. Thereafter, the AIFF opted for a plethora of foreigners in the head coach role with not a great deal of success to talk home about. Jamil was chosen by the AIFF technical committee headed by former football veteran IM Vijayan who had other options in the form of Stephen Constantine and Stefan Tarkovic for the role.
Jamil takes over from Manolo Marquez who left the role in the wake of India's disappointing run in international football. The Spaniard, also the manager of Indian Super League side FC Goa, was also in a soup due to his multiple duties and hence, opted out of the India job. Since the start of 2024, India has registered just a lone win in international football and the AIFF had to make bold calls regarding the coaching staff. Jamil also has been involved with the ISL where had been the coach of Jamshedpur FC till his India appointment. Having joined them midway through the 2023-24 season, Jamil did an appreciable rebuilding job at the club, leading them to a respectable fifth-spot finish last season.
It was a relatively brief career for Jamil as player, representing India in 40 international matches between 1998 and 2006. Constant injuries forced the midfielder to take premature retirement at the age of 29. Jamil, though, had already planned his post-retirement days and had been taking football management courses to get into the coaching field sooner than later. In the 2009 itself, Jamil joined Mumbai in the I-League and made an instant impressions back then, helping the club to overcome relegation. Considering the lack of financial clout at Mumbai during those days, Jamil's stint was remarkable as he went on to make the relevant during his seven-year reign as head coach.
In the 2016-17 season, Jamil was coach of the Aizawl FC who went on to win the I-League title, thereby becoming the first club from North-East India to achieve this feat. It was a famous underdog story that brough accolades to Jamil overnight and his coaching graph underwent a massive upward spike. In the following 2017-18 season, Jamil took home the highest-ever paycheck for an Indian coach in India's top-tier leagues when he joined East Bengal.
The move with East Bengal, however, was short-lived as Jamil joined their arch-rivals Mohan Bagan midway through that 2018-19 season. This, again, was a very short stint as he joined North-East United prior to the 2019 season on a three-year contract. That was a historic season for Jamil as North-East India made the playoffs, making him the first head coach to lead an ISL side past the league stage. His appointment itself was record-breaking, as no Indian had been selected as a permanent head coach of an ISL side till he came along.
After a brief stint with Bengaluru United, Jamil joined Jamshedpur FC midway through the 2023-24 season and had been steadily rebuilding the club's fortunes during his tenure as head coach. His ability to transform underdog sides into teams with a winning mentality has been Jamil's USP and that's what the AIFF will hope he adds to the national side as well.
Jamil's immediate assignment will be the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Nations Cup that takes off from August 29 in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India are grouped alongside co-hosts Tajikistan, with Iran and Afghanistan being the other teams in the group. There is the Asian Cup Qualification matches too, and India have a lot of catching up to do there as well.
Currently, Jamil's men are in difficult terrain, with just a solitary win from their last 15 international fixtures and that came against Maldives in March 2025. If his days at Jamshedpur FC are anything to go by, Jamil prefers to operate with a 4-4-2 formation that he tends to tweak at times to a 4-3-1-2 with the emphasis being on a steady balance between attack and defence.
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