Bani Yas name Isaila as new coach; Sharjah to retain Anbari

Mohammad Abdullah, Staff Reporter

Bani Yas named Romanian Daniel Isaila as the  new coach of the club while Sharjah will retain Abdulaziz Al Anbari as their manager for the next season, it was confirmed by the club via a tweet.

Sharjah signed the termination agreement with Argentine coach Rodolfo Arruabarrena, who was the manager of Shabab Al Ahli last season, and his assistants, in the presence of the club’s president Abdullah Al Ejlah, who wished good luck to the coach.

Based on the prior agreement between the two parties, Sharjah will renew the contract of the current coach Anbari to continue as the head of the technical staff of the Kings. It was recently agreed to renew contract of his assistants in order to ensure the stability of the team and to capitalise on the exploits of the last season.

Sharjah had handed Arruabarrena a contract, which was later cancelled even before he took charge, and reinstated Anbari as their manager.

Anbari had a stellar season with the Kings as he guided them to the Arabian Gulf League title in 2018-19. And because of the suspension of the current season with seven rounds to spare, Sharjah will remain the champions.

When the league was stopped, Shabab Al Ahli were at the top of the league with 43 points while Sharjah were at the fifth spot with 35 points. Sharjah had a tremendous start to the season as they remained unbeaten in the first nine games before going winless in the next five games because of the absence of some of the frontline players.

However, they had started getting the momentum back when the tournament ground to a halt due to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Isaila will take charge from August, a few days before the start of the new season, which gets under way on Sept.3 with the Gulf Cup.

The 49-year old led the Romanian club Astra to glory at the Romanian Cup and the Romanian Super Cup. The club also finished in second place in the Romanian League to qualify for the Europa League for the first time in their history.

On the international level, he worked as assistant coach to the Romanian national team, and head coach of the Romania’s U-21 team before moving to Saudi’s Al Hazm as head coach.

Isaila was appointed coach after the former manager Schaefer and Bani Yas parted ways with mutual consent following the completion of the former’s contract with the club.

The Romanian’s first job will be to gather the boys and help them gel as a unit and overcome the challenges that are likely to come after a long layoff, which resulted because of the coronavirus.

The Arabian Gulf League (AGL) was stopped in mid-March following the outbreak of the pandemic to safeguard the health of the players and the coaching staff.

When the league stopped, Bani Yas were on the ninth spot in the 14-team league with 23 points from 19 games. They were well out of danger zone and looking to finish in the top four. Bani Yas expressed their gratitude to the outgoing coach Schaefer and wished him success for his future endeavour.

Schaefer said: “It was an exceptional season and a great experience. We worked with a group of ambitious young people at Bani Yas, which has a lot of talented players, who are capable of taking the club to the submit.”

He added that he enjoyed every moment he spent with Baniyas Club, and wished them all the best.

Meanwhile, Bani Yas once again bolstered their squad with the fourth siging of the season. They roped in Abdullah Al Junaibi from Al Wahda on loan for a year.

Earlier, Sharjah signed Hassan Ismail, lecturer in the Asian Confederation and the former UAE goalkeeper, to be a supervisor of the Sharjah Football Academy where upcoming talent is bred.