Since last few days major news papers like Hindustan Times are reporting that 52 year old Croatian Igor Stimac is leading the race for Indian Coach Job. AIFF Technical Committee’s director Shyaam Thapa has already endorsed the former Croatian Coach. It’s undeniable that Stimac is a coach with a strong CV having coached a top side like Croatia. So it’s a not surprising that he is among the favourites.
But when we did a quick research on the Croatian. We couldn’t help but felt that he is not the right candidate for the very important job.
Stimac was an unpopular coach among the Croatian Fan during his tenure in 2012/13. During the World Cup qualifications for 2014, it is reported that Croatia scored the majority of their goals from set pieces, counterattacks, and defensive errors by their opponents. During the qualifications, Due to bad results and poor performances, 98% of Croatian fans voted in favour of sacking Stimac. After loosing their last qualification match to Scotland by 0-2 , Stimac resigned from the position.
Croatia ending qualifying as the second to last ranked second place team, having only one more point than last placed Denmark, thus taking the final playoff round spot.
If his unpopularity in Croatia is not enough of a reason to doubt his candidature for Indian National Team coach. His following coaching stint with clubs will.
In the beginning of 2015, Štimac was named as a new coach of Zadar( a top division Croatian club then). After six months he quit the job at Zadar. The club was relegated to second division. His limited experience in Asia is also not encouraging.
On 12 November 2015, he became head coach of Sepahan, a top Iranian Club, replacing Hossein Faraki. He resigned as Sepahan head coach on 20 April 2016, after a run of unsuccessful results which led Sepahan in the 11th place and out of both season’s cups, Hazfi Cup and AFC Champions League.
His latest coaching stint has also been below average. As a coach of Al Shahania of Qatar, he has won only 1 of 11 matches he managed.
This records of Stimac are definitely not encouraging. We, the Indian Football fans want the best ‘possible’ option as India’s Head coach. From his history, Stimach is not the one.