Mumbai: In a residential building in Mira Road, Henry Menezes found himself waiting for Khalid Jamil. This was early 2000s and the Mumbai suburb was yet to become the bustling locality it is today. But it was where Jamil found a home.
Menezes, a former India goalkeeper who played for and then managed the now defunct Mahindra United, was tasked with getting Jamil to finally sign the contract to join the club.
“Khalid was not easy to get a hold of,” Menezes recalled to HT. “Once he got home, we put him in the car and took him to our office. I gave him a pen to sign, and then he says ‘ye pen ka colour accha nahi hai, dusra hai kya? (the pen’s colour is not good, do you have another one?)’”
Jamil, who played for Air India at the time, was not one who liked change. He was fiercely loyal, and it took the Mahindra United team management over three hours to get Jamil to sign on the dotted line.
On Friday, Jamil agreed for another big change. He has 40 India caps. Now the 48-year-old is taking over as the national coach. He becomes the first Indian since 2012 to be appointed chief coach of the men’s national team.
But for a man who played all his club football for Mumbai teams, Jamil’s journey started over 2,500 kms away from Mira Road. Born in Kuwait, Jamil and his family had to flee the country after the Gulf War broke in 1990. They found shelter in Mumbai, but Jamil had carried his love for football with him.
He played for the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) youth team, and the defender was soon recruited by Air India, under the tutelage of Dronacharya awardee Bimal Ghosh.
“He was very sharp. He’d pick up things very quickly and that’s what has shaped him as a coach as well. He was dedicated, disciplined and had a madness for the game,” Ghosh said.
He was also fiercely competitive on the field. Jamil once reacted to a bad refereeing decision by angrily kicking a ball at a chair.
“He broke the chair with that shot,” Ghosh recalled with a laugh. “I told him I’ll kick him out of the team if he ever did that again. He apologised, and that is the only time he has reacted that badly on the pitch.”
Of course, he is a vocal presence on the touchline as a coach. But off the field, he is soft-spoken and calm.
“We used to keep joking with him, ‘ground main tu sher hota hai, bahaar billi hota hai.’ (you’re a lion on the field but a cat outside). He’d smile, put his head down and walk away,” Menezes said.
His playing career was severely hampered by knee injuries. Towards the end of his career, Menezes brought Jamil in to captain the newly formed Mumbai FC team in 2007. It was there that Jamil was given his first shot at coaching.
“Our head coach David Booth decided that Khalid should take charge of the U-19 team while also playing in the seniors,” Menezes said. “The junior team started to do really well. So, when David left, we decided to just make Khalid the senior team coach.”
That seven-season stint as Mumbai FC coach saw him being “put in the furnace,” as Menezes described it. It was only when Jamil was sacked in 2016 that he showed his unflailing character.
Till then, his entire football career had been in Mumbai.
“That was the saddest moment of his life because Mumbai was his home,” Menezes said. “But coming from Kuwait, living in Mira Road, he’s seen the grind and worked his way through it. He’s bounced back in every situation.”
A year after leaving Mumbai FC, he led Aizawl FC to an unexpected I-League title. And his reputation as a coach continued to grow. In 2020-21, he became the first Indian coach to lead an Indian Super League (ISL) team – NorthEast United – to the semi-final, a result he repeated with Jamshedpur FC this year.
Jamil’s big achievement was getting the foreign players to gel with the Indians in the team.
“He would have sat with them, learnt their mindset and won their confidence,” Menezes said. “The foreign players are difficult to crack. That’s what he managed to do. He’s a great man-manager.”
Jamil’s teams performed above expectations. Now, he takes over a national team that has sunk as low as 133 in world rankings. India will hope he can get the best out of the national players too.
