The Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) on Monday announced Usmon Toshev from Uzbekistan had been appointed as the new head coach of the national football team.Toshev, who has signed a one-year contract, succeeds Ashley Michael Westwood, the English coach who stepped down in August. Toshev has previously served as the head coach of Tajikistan.Addressing a press conference on Monday, Toshev said he would focus on key issues including team cohesion, talent identification programs, and organizing training camps inside and outside Afghanistan.He said his goal is to strengthen the position of the Afghanistan national football team on both regional and global levels.Toshev graduated from Bukhara University in 1987 with a degree in sports education.
Between 1988 and 1999 Toshev played for numerous clubs, both in Uzbekistan and abroad & in Russia, Hungary and Greece. In 1994 Toshev made two appearances for the Uzbekistan national team, in matches against Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.He retired from playing football in 1999 but immediately went on to coach teams. In 2000 he was appointed head coach of Bukhara; a post he held until 2008. In 2006 he also coached the national team for a while, under Russian coach Valery Nepomnyashchy. In 2009&2011 he was the head coach of another Uzbek club, Spartak Tashkent before moving on to Nasaf.
In 2013, he coached Spartak Bukhara.In 2014 and 2015 he was head coach of Afghanistan's De Maiwand Atalan club before returning to Uzbekistan. He has since coached Uzbekisan's U16 team, Afghanistan's Toofan Harrirud and in November 2018 he was appointed manager of the Tajikistan national under-23 football team and head coach of Tajikistan's national team.
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