From coaching Mohun Bagan to facing Lionel Messi, Argentina – Meet Honduras coach Jose Molina

Honduras will play world champions Argentina in an international friendly on Saturday in what will be a 2026 World Cup warm-up match for La Albiceleste.

Argentina will play two friendlies before heading to the World Cup, the last against Iceland on June 9.

But the match against Honduras has another subplot with roots in Indian football. One of the coaches, Jose Francisco Molina, was recently in India with one of the Indian Super League (ISL) clubs.

So who is Jose Molina, the coach who went from coaching in India to Argentina in a matter of months?

Molina is a former Spain international who played as a winger and goalkeeper. He established himself as a prominent goalkeeper and played for almost twenty years, mainly for Atletico Madrid and Deportivo La Coruna, winning the La Liga title with Atletico in the 1995–96 season.

He switched to coaching in the 2009-2010 season and took over as manager of Villarreal in the 2011-2012 season. Molina joined Indian side Atletico de Kolkata, also known as ATK, in 2016 and guided them to the ISL title.

The Spaniard then returned to his home country and became sporting director of the Royal Spanish Football Federation between 2018 and 2022. However, his period in India was not over yet.

Molina returned to the ISL, this time in charge of Mohun Bagan Super Giant, who won the League Winners Shield and the ISL Cup under his tutelage in his first season with the club. However, he fell out with the club management the following season, after a poor run in the AIFF Super Cup, and left by mutual consent in November 2025.

In February, he took charge of the Honduran men’s national team. The country’s first match under his leadership ended in a 2-2 draw against Peru in March.

Published on June 7, 2026