Adnan Hamad

Adnan Hamad Majid Al-Abbassi (; born 1 February 1961) is an Iraqi football manager and former player, who currently serves as a sports consultant for Jordanian football club Etihad.

Career Playing career Adnan was born in Samarra, Iraq, the son of a wealthy land-owning family. He started his career with Samarra juniors in 1975 at the age of 14. In 1982, Adnan was called up by the famous Iraq national coach Wathiq Naji to join Salahaddin Football Club, where he spending only one season. There, he won the Iraq Super League cup during 1982–83 season.Yugoslav coach Miodrag Stankovic. Stankovic later called a young Adnan into the Iraq Under-19 team. Later, Adnan moved to Baghdad and signed for Al-Zawraa. In 1984, he was called up by Ammo Baba to the Iraq national football team for the 1984 Gulf Cup. He later went on to make over 20 appearances for the national team winning the 1985 Pan-Arab Games & and 1985 Arab Cup. He also played for Al-Talaba and Al-Tayaran club teams in Iraq.

Managerial career After being plagued by injuries during the latter parts of his career, he went into coaching and managed his home club Samarra in a player-coach role in the 1992–93 season. During this time he also managed to score 33 goals for the club. He later became the coach of Al-Zawraa and was assistant coach of the Iraq national football team to Yahya Alwan during the 1996 AFC Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates.

Hamad spent time in Europe studying coaching techniques before coaching abroad in the UAE with Dubai SC. He first coached the Iraq national team in February 2000 and led the team to third place at the 2000 West Asian Football Federation Championship in Amman. He was then replaced by Milan Zivadinovic only two months before the 2000 AFC Asian Cup in Lebanon.

Adnan was back as the national coach of Iraq for the second time a year later after Milan Zivadinovic was sacked. Hamad led Iraq to the second round of the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifiers before he was replaced by Croatian Rudolf Belin after two consecutive defeats to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in the opening three matches of the tournament.

His third period as coach of Iraq came in 2002 when he helped Iraq to the WAFF Championship win in Damascus with a dramatic 3–2 win over Jordan in extra-time before being replaced with the German Bernd Stange. Hamad had a short stint as manager of the Lebanon national team between 22 January 2004 and 8 February 2004. He regained his position as coach of Iraq when Bernd Stange left in 2004 a year after the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States. Hamad managed to lead Iraq Olympic football team to a fourth place finish at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

He was national coach of Jordan between 2009 and 2013. He led them to the quarter-finals of the 2011 Asian Cup and the play-off round of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification. On 7 February 2014, Hamad was appointed to coach Baniyas in the UAE Arabian Gulf League. On 6 August 2014, Hamad was appointed to coach Bahrain on a two-year contract. He later coached Al-Wehdat in 2016–2017.

On 16 June 2021, he was reappointed as the head coach of Jordan, a position he held until the end of his contract in June 2023. On 10 January 2025, he became the manager of Saudi club Al-Orobah. In late April of that year, he was dismissed while the club was fighting to avoid relegation.

Managerial statistics

Honors As manager Club Al-Zawraa Iraqi Premier League: 1996, 2000 Iraq FA Cup: 1996, 2000 Baghdad Championship: 1999, 2003 Iraqi Super Cup: 1999, 2000

Al-Faisaly AFC Cup: 2006 Jordan FA Shield: 2008 Jordan Super Cup: 2006

International

Iraq U23

Football at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament: 2004 (Fourth Place)

Iraq U20

AFC U-19 Championship: 2000

Iraq

WAFF: 2002

Individual AFC Coach of the Year: 2004 Lebanese Premier League Best Coach: 2005–06

Footnotes