Toss-up between Jamil, Constantine for India coachs job

Updated on: Jul 31, 2025 10:38 pm IST

It’s Constantine’s worldwide expertise and India stints in opposition to Jamil’s good run with Jamshedpur FC

Kolkata: Khalid Jamil and Stephen Constantine are frontrunners to be named head coach of the lads’s senior nationwide soccer group when the manager committee of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) meets on Friday. The new coach’s first project would be the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Nations Cup from August 31.

Khalid Jamil is ready to be the primary Indian in over 13 years to be named head coach of the lads’s senior nationwide group. (Sportzpics/ISL)

Should Jamil, 48, be chosen, he would be the first Indian in cost in over 13 years. Jamil is now overseeing his membership Jamshedpur FC’s marketing campaign within the 134th Durand Cup.

Along with Stephen Constantine and Stefan Tarkovic, Jamil is within the closing shortlist handed over to the manager committee on July 23. From 170 functions, the listing was pruned by nationwide group director Subrata Paul, AIFF technical director Syed Sabir Pasha, and the federation’s technical committee headed by IM Vijayan. Bimal Ghosh and Armando Colaco, advisors to AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey, additionally gave inputs.

While Tarkovic and Constantine have been nationwide group coaches – a requirement that shall be given choice, as per the commercial issued by AIFF on July 4 – what may favour Jamil is that he would wish the least time to bed-in. Tarkovic has by no means coached in India and that successfully places the 52-year-old Slovak, who has European championship finals expertise and whose final project with Kyrgyzstan resulted in June 2024, third within the pecking order.

Constantine, 62, has been India head coach twice, from 2002-05 and 2015-19. The Anglo-Cypriot was additionally answerable for East Bengal within the Indian Super League in 2022-23 however the membership’s ninth-place end may put him at a drawback. Constantine took cost of Pakistan in 2023 and although they gained a primary World Cup qualifier (in opposition to Cambodia) below him, it turned out to be his solely win in 10 matches in cost. Yet, he has backers in AIFF due to his familiarity with India.

Jamil led Jamshedpur FC to the ISL semi-final and Super Cup closing final time period and has not misplaced within the Durand Cup. In brief, if present kind is the consideration, the previous India worldwide is the favorite regardless of his lack of worldwide expertise and dealing with a altering room full of massive names.

“The incontrovertible fact that he (Jamil) would additionally value the least is a bonus,” stated an AIFF govt committee member on Thursday. “If the one Indian coach to make the ISL semi-finals twice doesn’t get an opportunity, who ought to,” stated one other member. Not authorised to talk to the media, the members didn’t wish to be named. .

The final Indian coach to move the nationwide group was Savio Medeira who was in cost from October 2011 to March 2012.

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