Juan Ferrando: from Arsenal fitness coach to title winner in India

W hen the 2022-23 Indian Super League (ISL) ended last month, four of the 11 teams had Spanish coaches, four were in English hands and the two countries met in the title decider. Spain triumphed, but more importantly so did ATK Mohun Bagan and Juan Ferrando who, at 42, has brought the title to one of the world’s oldest football cities. Kolkata has clubs that go back to the 19th century, derbies that can attract more than 100,000 and is the spiritual home of the game in India.

“It is not just a sport, football in Kolkata is part of the family culture, the colours, the feeling,” Ferrando says. “It is something generational and passed from parents to their children over the years. One can’t understand life without it and one must experience it to understand.”

He understands more now after the final win over Bengaluru. The ISL started in 2014 as a glamorous, standalone and short alternative to the traditional top of the football pyramid, the I-League. Almost a decade on, it has lost some of the early stardust that Alessandro Del Piero, Nicolas Anelka and Robert Pires brought but it has become the top tier of Indian football with routes to the Asian Champions League for the winners.

That will be the next challenge for Mohun Bagan but Ferrando has already come a long way. “I spent 11 years as a football player, from the age of eight, before a big injury made me get off the field,” he says. “I felt coaching was a way to experience football from another point of view.” The first experience came at 22 at Espanyol’s academy. Then he moved through Spanish clubs, including Barcelona, and left Málaga’s technical staff in 2013 for the Moldovan champions Sheriff Tiraspol.

That was the start of an unusual path and it contained a stop