Career
Arguably the finest striker of his time, Shabbir was a prolific goal scorer both at the national and international level After playing with Tata Sports Club in Bombay for a few years, Shabbir Ali was lured away by the top Calcutta club, East Bengal in the late seventies. Later he joined Mohammedan and took the club to a great height before retiring from the same club in the mid-1980s.
Shabbir Ali scored 35 goals in international matches and remains one of India"s all-time top scorers, ahead of Chuni Goswami, PK Banerjee, Inder Singh and Baichung Bhutia among others
In the 1976 Merdeka international football tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Shabbir Ali scored a hat-trick against Indonesia in the first 35 minutes. Only five football players in India have scored an international hat-trick.
Of those, Shabbir Ali"s is the fastest. Foreign 13 years between 1972 and 1984, Shabbir Ali was an automatic choice with the Indian team, be it Asian Youth, Asian Games, pre-Olympics, Asia Cup, Merdeka tournament, Jawaharlal Nehru Gold Cup, King"s Cup or any other goodwill tour.
He also captained India in Asian Youth, pre-Olympics, Nehru Cup, Merdeka and King"s Cup tournaments.
After retiring as a football player in 1985, Shabbir Ali became a coach. He earned a first class diploma from the Sports Authority of India. He successfully passed the German football association B License coach and also their four-week coaching course, which is equivalent to A License.
As a coach, Shabbir Ali proved to be a great success within a short period of time.
Appointed the Technical Director of the India, Shabbir Ali steered the team to the gold medal in the SAF championship in Chennai in 1995. He remained the Technical Director till the pre-World Cup tournament in Qatar next year.
Next season, he took up the challenge of coaching a relatively smaller club when he accepted the assignment with Peerless Club. lieutenant took him only one season to promote the club to the Calcutta Super Division.
Between 1997 and 1999, Shabbir Ali coached top Goan outfit Salgaocar and established himself as India"s best coach.
Thereafter, the team flew into Delhi to bag the Durand Cup beating both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal and then tamed Mohun Bagan again in the Super Cup contest. Number other teams in India have been given such a great run in Indian football in recent years.