Club Eagles head coach for this season, Ihsan Abdul Ghani (Saanthi) has joined the under 19 national side last night as their head coach. Saanthi previously has worked as an assistant coach to former national team coach Mr.Joseph Jankech  and was a member of the golden team, 2008 Saff championship winning team as an assistant coach.

It is not the first time that Saanthi has worked in the big house of football. He has also performed as a deputy technical director in Football Association of Maldives.

Saanthi spend the last 3 years with Club Eagles where he has taken the Eagles to a whole new level. As this season Eagles could not make it to the Ooredoo Dhivehi Premier League, Saanthi expressed it as a “failure”. Talking to the press after the last match of Male League, where Eagles lost 0-1 to Green Streets, Saanthi said that:

“It is a failure for me, Club has put all the resources for this fight, there is a possibility that I may no longer be Eagles head coach”.

Though Eagles could not win a spot in the biggest local league this year, it was Saanthi who drove Eagles to their very first title in Maldives top flight football, President’s Cup 2016.

In the junior U-19 side, Saanthi will be accompanied by his assistant coach in Club Eagles, Ahmed Shakir (Shaakittey) and former U-16 national team head coach Mohamed Shahid (Shaad).

First challenges for the national U19 side comes, “U19 SAFF Championship” in this coming September 2017.

Next, and the biggest challenge comes for the U19 side will be, “AFC U19 Championship 2018 Qualifiers”. It seems just couple of weeks after U19 SAFF, in October, U19 national side has to leave for the AFC U19 Championship 2018 Qualifiers.

There were rumors that under 19 national team will be lead by senior national team head coach, Mr. Darren Stewart. But it seems Maldives FA has chosen Saanthi as the care-taker.

(Photo: Mihaaru.Com)