Jamshedpur FC


Jamshedpur Football Club is an Indian professional football club based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. The club has competed as a member of Indian Super League under licence from All India Football Federation. The club is owned by Tata Steel, a subsidiary of the Tata Group.
The club was established on 12 June 2017, when Tata Steel won the bidding rights for one of two expansion spots in the Indian Super League. Jamshedpur FC is the first club in the Indian Super League to have its own stadium and facilities. They used to graduate from Tata Football Academy founded by Tata Group in 1987. Their home stadium is JRD Tata Sports Complex and since 2018 they have technical support and partnership from Spanish giant Atlético Madrid in academy and club operations.

History

Formation

On 11 May 2017, it was announced by the Indian Super League organizers, Football Sports Development, that they would be inviting bids for new teams to join the league for the upcoming season. The bids would be for ten cities, namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Cuttack, Durgapur, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Ranchi, and Siliguri.
On 25 May 2017, it was announced that bidding for new teams had ended and that the league's appointed external validator would look over the bids. Two weeks later, on 12 June, it was officially announced that Bengaluru FC and Tata Steel had won the bids for the new teams.
After winning the expansion bid to enter the Indian Super League, Tata announced on 14 July 2017 that the inaugural head coach for the Jamshedpur franchise would be Steve Coppell. Coppell, the previous ISL season, had led the Kerala Blasters to the league final. Nine days later, on 23 July, before the 2017–18 ISL Players Draft, the team's official name and logo were revealed. The club was officially named Jamshedpur FC. During the players draft, due to being a brand new club, Jamshedpur FC had the very first pick. India international Anas Edathodika was the first draft pick selected by the club and thus the first player in Jamshedpur history.

Inaugural season

Jamshedpur began playing in November 2017. The team played their first-ever match on 18 November 2017 against NorthEast United at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium. Despite being disadvantaged through defender André Bikey being sent off, Jamshedpur managed to hold on for a 0–0 draw. After another goalless draw in their next match, Jamshedpur played their first official home match on 1 December against the reigning champions ATK. Over 23,000 fans came to support the side at the JRD Tata Sports Complex but once again, the team failed to do more than draw 0–0. Finally, in their fourth match, away at Delhi Dynamos, Jamshedpur managed to earn their first victory. The club won 1–0 with Izu Azuka becoming the first-ever Jamshedpur goal scorer.
By the halfway point of the season, Jamshedpur had only managed two victories in the season including four draws and three defeats. This meant the team was in seventh place, six points off the playoff spots. Fortunes changed for Jamshedpur during the second half of the season and on 4 March 2018, the club played their final match of the Super League season at home against Goa with Jamshedpur needing a victory in order to qualify for the finals. Unfortunately, despite having home advantage, Jamshedpur fell 3–0 and thus failed to qualify for the finals in their first season.

2018-19 Season

Jamshedpur FC appointed Cesar Ferrando as their new head coach for the 2018-19 season and saw a host of changes in the squad. The club also made headlines by making one of the biggest signings in the league’s history as they roped in Tim Cahill to their roster.
The team started the season with a bang as they won at Mumbai City and held Bengaluru FC at their own ground. The club was in the running to qualify for the play-offs through-out the season as new recruits Michael Soosairaj, Sergio Cidoncha, Carlos Calvo and Mario Arques took charge along with the old guard of Tiri, Memo, Subrata, and Farukh. However, towards the business end of the league, Jamshedpur narrowly lost out on the play-off spot to NorthEast United as they finished 5th just like their inaugural season. The squad went on to play the Hero Super Cup 2019 in Bhubaneswar where they were given a walkover against Gokulam Kerala in the knock-out 16 matches. Jamshedpur lost a thrilling encounter against eventual champions FC Goa 4-3 as they bowed out of the tournament.

2019-20 season

Jamshedpur FC appointed Antonio Iriondo as their head coach for the 2019-20 season of Indian Super League. He has joined the club after managing various clubs in La Liga, Segunda Division and Segunda B in his 27 year-long careers.
The club entered its third season of Indian Super League by signing up some new and some big names.
C.K. Vineeth,
Aitor Monroy,
Sergio Castel,
Isaac Vanmalsawma,
Jitendra Singh,
Narender Gahlot,
Amarjit Singh Kiyam,
Niraj Kumar,
Noé Acosta,
Mobashir Rahman,
Francisco Medina Luna,
Keegan Pereira and
Joyner Lourenco.

Pre-season

Jamshedpur FC started their season with 5 pre-season matches as they prepared for the upcoming challenge of the 2019-20 Indian Super League.

Matches

Jamshedpur FC were unbeaten in their first 3 matches for the 3rd consecutive season of Indian Super League. They started their season at home. Their first match was against Odisha FC where they scored 2-1 against them. In their second match against Hyderabad, they won 3-1. Their third home game was against Bengaluru FC where both teams finished with a goalless draw. The team faced their first defeat of the season at the hands of ATK FC in Kolkata with a score of 3-1. After the big break, Jamshedpur FC triumphed over FC Goa by 0-1 in Goa. The team then went through three back to back draws out of which two were at home. The third draw was against Kerala Blasters in Kochi followed by three back to back defeats against Mumbai City FC, Odisha FC, and Bengaluru FC. The club battled for the playoffs in the next few matches which saw plenty of ups and downs. In the end, the team couldn't qualify for the playoffs of ISL 2019-20 season.

Grassroot Football

Since its inception, Jamshedpur Football Club has made a commitment to developing football in the local region. Whether it be promoting grassroots football or establishing football schools, the goal has always remained the same which is to promote football and a healthy lifestyle in the community and bring forward local talent by establishing a strong foundation. The kids that train in these grassroots centers are of age 3 to 13 years old.
Jamshedpur FC has opened several football schools in the city’s vicinity.
Mt. Litera Zee School, Mango
Kerala Samajam Model School, Golmuri
RVS Academy, Dimna
DBMS Kadma High School
Loyola School, CH Area
Carmel Junior College, Sonari
Hill Top School, Telco
DAV Public School, Bistupur.
They are currently planning to open several more football schools in the coming months.
Jamshedpur FC along with TSRDS also runs 22 Grassroots and Youth Development Centers of Kolhan Region in Jharkhand where over 2000 kids from the age of 3 to 18 years old train daily.

Crest

The round-shaped crest, with a shield inside it; depicting sculpting of a football out of molten steel, referring Jamshedpur FC's Tata Steel origins and the Tata Group's decades of a footballing journey through the Tata Football Academy and multiple grassroots efforts. The outer circle of the crest features the name of the club written in English and tribal symbols which pays tribute to the rich tribal history of Jharkhand state.

Kit manufacturers and shirt sponsors

In 2017, Jamshedpur signed a deal with Nivia Sports as their official kit sponsors from the 2017–18 season. Nivia Sports is the official kit sponsor of Jamshedpur FC.

Affiliated club

Jamshedpur FC is the first Indian club to have its own stadium. They play their home games at JRD Tata Sports Complex popularly known as "The Furnace". The stadium was originally built in 1991, with a capacity for 60,000 spectators. The stadium was named after the former chairman of the "Tata Group" J.R.D. Tata.

Supporters

The club has quickly built a reputation for one of the most vocal fan-bases in India. The fans are known as The Red Miners. The players and the coach have often acknowledged the fans' support in the success by calling them The 12th Man.

Players

Current squad

Non-Playing Staff

Technical Hierarchy

PositionName
Head Coach Owen Coyle
Assistant coach Sandy Stewart
Assistant coach Steven Dias
Goalkeeping coach Alfonso Lacasa Taberne
Fitness coach Luis Munoz Miguel
Technical Director Julián Villar-Aragón
Head of Youth Development and Grassroots Kundan Chandra
Reserve Team Head Coach Noel Anthony Wilson
U18 Head Coach Akshay Das
U15 Head Coach & Head - Strength and Conditioning Adrian Gregory Dias
Goalkeeping Coach Youth Team Subroto Dasgupta
U13 Head Coach Indranil Chakraborty
U12 Head Coach Arshad Hussain
First Team Analyst Gaurav Khilari
First Team Head Physiotherapist Vivek Nigam
First Team Physiotherapist Hariharasudhan Ravichandran
Team Doctor Rahul GV Sharma
Head Physiotherapist Reserve and Youth Teams Arghya Basu
Reserve Team Analyst Praveen Kumar
Youth Team Analyst Abhishek Ganguly
Masseurs Anup Das and Dilip Singh

Corporate Hierarchy

List of players

Statistics

Season by season

Managers Statistics

NameNationalityFromToPWDLGFGAWin%
Steve Coppell14 July 201718 June 2018
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César Ferrando21 July 20185 April 2019
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Antonio Iriondo26 July 201929 february 2020
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Owen Coyle29 June 2020TBD
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Records

JFC Training Center is the training and relax center for Jamshedpur FC, located in Kadma, Jamshedpur. Besides the training field, the building comes with a fully equipped cross-fit gym, a swimming pool, and recreation centers. The project is lined with the vision of the club, where international-level training equipment would be available to the players. After its design plans were approved on April 2018, the groundbreaking ceremony of the all-weather training arena was held on 25 November 2017.
Jamshedpur FC have a robust set-up in youth development with their grassroot-level activities and the Tata Football Academy. The academy was awarded four star in 2019–20 season by AIFF.

Development squads

In early 2017, AIFF approved Tata FA's application and officially registered all the club's teams to Jamshedpur FC.
The following are the sponsors of JFC :
Title Sponsor
Official Sponsors