(Football news) Javier Cabrera has been appointed as the new Head Coach of Bangladesh’s national football team, in a ceremony in Dhaka on 19th January 2022. A UEFA Pro-Licence Coach, Cabrera comes with 15+ years of experience in coaching and youth development programs with one of his positions being the Technical Director of the La Liga Football Schools program in India. He led the initiative since its start in 2018 and led the development and implementation of camps with Spanish football methodology across 30+ schools in 14 cities in India.
In the two-year period that he was associated with the La Liga Football Schools, his focus was on expanding the reach of the program to more players and trainers all across India. He led several large projects with LLFS, like the ‘Train the Trainer’ program, the Annual Scholarship, training camps, virtual training programs and many more. Cabrera also played a key role in the expansion of the Football Schools program from its launch in 2018, to currently having impacted 10,000+ students across the country. Aside from his association with La Liga Football Schools, Cabrera has had a long relationship with Indian football including a managerial stint with I-League’s Sporting Goa. With this new position, he has become the first Spaniard to manage the Bangladeshi National Football Team.
Javier Cabrera, Head Coach, Bangladesh National Football Team, said, “Having worked in India and this subcontinent for several years has been a huge contributor towards my understanding of athletes and approach towards sports here. In my tenure at LaLiga Football Schools, I worked closely with many talented and passionate footballers from different cultural backgrounds, the learnings from which will definitely help me out in this new challenge. Coaching the Bangladesh national team is a big and exciting challenge that I’m looking forward to and I’m positive about building up the stature of this team on the global stage.”
La Liga Football Schools is a comprehensive grassroots development programme by the Spanish football league in association with India on Track (IOT). The training programme follows technical curriculum and detailed methodology of Spanish football and is implemented at the centres which have participants aged 6-18 years. The programme also focuses on imparting technical training to coaches and trainers at the centres in order to have a significant impact on the footballing infrastructure and systems in India. Several LaLiga clubs like Sevilla FC, Celta de Vigo and Real Betis have also recognised the impact of the program and potential of the participants and partnered with LaLiga for different initiatives since the launch.
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