Indian Football Head Coach: Albert Roca among 4 names shortlisted

Former Bengaluru FC coach Albert Roca remains favourite to be appointed the Indian National Football Team head coach.

The Spaniard's name is among the four shortlisted for the post, which was left vacant following the resignation of Stephen Constantine right after India's disappointing exit at the AFC Asian Cup 2019 in January.

The AIFF Technical Committee, which will recommend the name of the coach to the AIFF Executive Committee, will meet on May 9, Thursday, to interview all the 4 candidates for the job.

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Croatian Igor Stimac and Swede Hakan Ericson have made it to the final shortlist and their appointment depends on how they present their ideas to the AIFF Technical Committee on Thursday.

A surprise name among the four is definitely that of South Korean Lee Min-Sung, who has represented his country in the 1998 and 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Min-Sung previously managed the Jeonnam Dragons FC in the K-League and has been serving as the assistant manager of the Korean U-23 side since 2018.

"The 4 shortlisted candidates will be asked to present their roadmap for the national team during the interview on May 9," Shyam Thapa, the chairman of the AIFF Technical Committee, told Sportskeeda.

"We shall also sit down and have an internal meeting on what qualities we want from the coach before that."

For now, Roca appears to be the favourite because of his wide knowledge about Indian Football, having coached Bengaluru FC from 2016-18.

In the 2 years that Roca spent with BFC, he guided the team to the final of the AFC Cup in 2016 and Bengaluru remain the only Indian club to have gotten that far in the continental competition. While the team didn't do well in the I-League under Roca, they managed to win the Federation Cup in 2017.

The club shifted leagues in the 2017-18 season to play in the ISL. In their very first season of the ISL, Roca-helmed Bengaluru topped the table, taking an eight-point lead over second-placed Chennaiyin FC. They, however, could not win the final but made amends for it by bagging the Super Cup.

Roca then left Bengaluru for personal reasons and was replaced by his assistant manager Carles Cuadrat. Appointing Roca would set the national team up with a Spanish style of play and allow Roca to complete his project in India. The Spaniard has national team management experience with Saudi Arabia and El Salvador.

Stimac, 51, on the other hand, comes with the most impressive CV as a player. He was part of the Croatian national team that finished third in the 1998 FIFA World Cup. But as a national team manager of Croatia in 2012, Stimac could not achieve much success with about 98 per cent of the Croatian people voting him out in an opinion poll.

Meanwhile, Ericson also has national team experience with Sweden briefly in 2016. He coached the Swedish team in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and also served as the U-21 coach between 2011 and 2017.

Under Ericson, Sweden won the UEFA U-21 European Championship in 2015.

Leaving out top names

There were other big names interested in the job like former England managers Sam Allardyce and Sven-Goran Eriksson but they did not make the final list. About 250 candidates had applied for the coveted post with 40 being considered for a second round of scrutiny.

"We had to consider the salary that these top coaches might be expecting and see how much we can afford," Thapa.

"Based on that, a few names were left out and we brought down the list to 4."

Upon his appointment, the national team coach will have to manage India during their King's Cup campaign in Thailand from June 5.

Soon after, India will host a 4-nation Inter-Continental Cup in July, before appearing for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers in September.