Doru Isac named new AIFF technical director

Doru Isac emerged as the number one choice for AIFF's technical director post because of his youth-oriented approach.

AIFF's new technical director Doru Isac.

Romania's Doru Isac has been appointed as the new technical director for the Indian football team, a well-placed All India Football Federation (AIFF) official told Sportstar on Friday.

Isac will take over the role from Savio Madeira, who has been the interim technical director since 2017.

READ | India U-16 team heads to Italy for exposure trip

The AIFF's technical committee, on Monday, interviewed the three candidates for the post —  Isac, Jorge Castelo and Gaioz Darsadze — and Isac emerged as the number one choice because of his youth-oriented approach.

“All the three candidates had very interesting propositions, but Isac's youth development programme and coach development programme was very impressive,” the technical committee's chairman, Shyam Thapa, told Sportstar .

Isac had convinced the committee that he would not interfere in the new coach's functioning and would look to focus more on youth development and coach education, which worked in his favour.

It is also interesting to note that Isac was the only candidate who made the trip to India to attend the interview in person, but he was unable to obtain the necessary documents in time and was forced to give the interview via Skype from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Isac comes into Indian football with a wealth of experience, having worked for close to 22 years in Asia. The Romanian held the position of sporting director at Japanese top division club Yokohama F. Marinos previously and has managerial experiences with MLS's Houston Dynamos' U-23s and Romania U-19 national team. The 56-year-old has also worked with the likes of the legendary Arsene Wenger and former Portugal and Iran manager Carlos Quieroz.