Qatar vs India: An air of familiarity for Igor Stimac

On December 21, 2016, Qatar Stars League (QSL) club Al Shahaniya were battered 10-0 in a league encounter by Al Duhail. It was an extremely unpleasant day for Portuguese head coach Jose Fernando who was sacked following the disastrous result. 

With four months left for the season to conclude, the Qatari club roped in Croatian Igor Stimac as their interim manager. He managed just one win in 13 games with a sub-par squad and the team was relegated at the end of the season but two results that he pulled off during his short stint will be of interest to the Indian football audience. 

The results of the team were so bad even before Stimac arrived - two wins in 12 matches, winless in their previous seven games - that another hammering was expected when Al Shahaniya hosted Al Duhail for the return leg on April 2017. Qatar's 2019 Asian Cup hero Almoez Ali, then 20 years old, had started the game. 

Al Duhail's only non-Qatari player in their lineup, Brazilian Edgar Silva broke the deadlock with four minutes left for half-time. The supporters feared their team conceding more goals in the second half but things turned out differently. Three penalties, two for the hosts and one for the away team, kept the game tied at 2-2. 

It has to be noted that Al Duhail had several national team players and a foreign striker while Al Shahaniya's team was made up entirely of local players.

A few months earlier, Stimac's team faced one of the biggest clubs in the region, Al Sadd in an away league game. The end result was 1-1 after the hosts opened the scoring, a result which was a solace for the supporters of a club which was going through a difficult period. 

Making the result sweeter was the fact that Al Sadd had former Barcelona midfielder Xavi in their ranks, in addition to two other foreign players.

Igor Stimac is no stranger to Qatar's football scenario. While the results didn't go his way, his experience in Qatar could be useful in his new job as the head coach of the Indian national team. The Blue Tigers will travel to Qatar for a 2022 World Cup qualifier on September 10.

Interestingly, 17 of the 24-man squad announced by Qatar coach Felix Sanchez for the qualifiers are from Al Sadd and Al Duhail, including young Almoez Ali who remains Qatar's in-form source of goals.