Adnan Hamad

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…