After the Afghanistan National Football Team did not advance to the 2023 Asian Nations Cup, criticisms were raised against Anosh Dastgir, the former head coach of this team, and the Afghanistan Football Federation decided to terminate his contract with the agreement of both sides after several rounds of negotiations.

After the removal of Anosh, the Afghanistan national football team stopped activities and there was no news of official or friendly training and games of this team for almost a year.

On April 28, 2023, the Football Federation announced that it has chosen Abdullah Al-Mutairi as the new head coach of the Afghanistan national team.

In the announcement of the Afghanistan Football Federation, it is stated that a training camp will be held inside and outside the country and top football figures will be invited to the national team.

Who is Abdullah al-Mutairi?

Abdullah Al-Mutairi is a citizen of Kuwait. Mr. Al-Mutairi, who is 41 years old, started his career in 2017 as a coach of “Razwa” club team in Saudi Arabia.

In 2019, he took charge of the second team of “Al-Shahaniya” in Qatar.

Al-Mutairi later worked as the head coach of the under 17 age national team of Kyrgyzstan and then became the head coach of the Nepal national team.

Al-Mutairi managed to advance to the finals of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) with the Nepalese national team and failed to win the championship title after losing to India.

According to football experts, the new head coach of the Afghanistan national football team is interested in using the 1-4-1-4 formation and his teams play more defensively.

The interesting information about Al-Mutairi is that his salary is about USD 12,000 to USD 17,000 paid by Qatar and Afghanistan is not responsible for it.

It is possible that Al-Mutairi will arrive in Kabul soon to sign his contract with the Football Federation and lead the national team.

Al-Mutairi’s first experience as the head coach of the Afghanistan National Football Team will be in the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA). Afghanistan is in the same group as the teams of Iran and Kyrgyzstan.

The first round of the Central Asia Zone Championship will be hosted by Tajikistan in June of this year.