Tom Saintfiet
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Tom Saintfiet | ||
| Date of birth | 29 March 1973 | ||
| Place of birth | Mol, Belgium | ||
| Playing position | Midfielder | ||
| Club information | |||
|
Current team
|
None | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| K.V.C. Westerlo | |||
| – | K.F.C. Lommel S.K. | ||
| – | K.F.C. Verbroedering Geel | ||
| Teams managed | |||
| 1997–2001 | Lower Belgian Divisions | ||
| 2000 | Satelitte Abidjan | ||
| 2002–2003 | B71 Sandur | ||
| 2002–2003 | Stormvogels Telstar | ||
| 2003–2004 | Al-Gharafa | ||
| 2004 | Qatar U17 | ||
| 2005–2006 | BV Cloppenburg | ||
| 2006–2007 | FC Emmen (Technical Director) | ||
| 2008 | RoPS | ||
| 2008–2010 | Namibia | ||
| 2010 | Zimbabwe | ||
| 2010–2011 | Shabab Al-Ordon | ||
| 2011 | Ethiopia | ||
| 2012 | Young Africans | ||
| 2012–2013 | Yemen | ||
| 2013 | Malawi | ||
| 2014 | Free State Stars | ||
| 2015–2016 | Togo | ||
| 2016 | Bangladesh | ||
| 2016–2017 | Trinidad and Tobago | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. | |||
Tom Saintfiet (born 29 March 1973 in Mol, Belgium) is a Belgian UEFA PRO licensed association football manager and former player. He played football between 1983 and 1997 (FC Boom) before becoming a football manager at the age of 24, becoming the youngest manager in Belgian football. He was appointed as the coach of the Trinidad and Tobago national team on 7 December 2016, before resigning after only 4 games on 10 January 2017.
Saintfiet has coached in several countries; Belgium, Qatar, Germany, Faroe Islands, Finland, Jordan, the Netherlands. He has also worked in Africa, becoming the National Team Head Coach of Namibia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Malawi and Togo. Before going to Namibia, Saintfiet was manager of Finnish Premier League club RoPS Rovaniemi. In 2002, Tom Saintfiet coached Faroese team B71 and finished second in the Faroe Islands First Division. He then went on to become coach at Al-Ittihad Sports Club of Qatar (now called Al-Gharafa Sports Club). In 2004, he Coached the Qatar U17 team to third place in the AFC Asian Championships and qualified for the U17 FIFA World Championships. Prior to FIFA World Cup 2010, Saintfiet was one of the candidates to lead the African Super Eagles, Nigeria, for the World Cup campaign in South Africa.
Saintfiet started very successfully with Namibia by beating Comoros and Malawi and playing a draw against Lesotho in the Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup in South Africa in July 2008. Namibia were eliminated from the Quarter Final at the hands of subsequent winner and host South Africa. Saintfiet's achievements included defeating Zimbabwe 4–2 in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier and Congo DR 4-0 in a friendly. Three days after drawing 1–1 away to Lebanon on April 2009, Namibia once again got an impressive result with a 0-0 draw away to Angola. Arguably his most satisfying result came in Durban, when Namibia drew 1–1 with South Africa after leading for much of the game. Namibia had only won 1 game out of 12 in the months before Saintfiet's arrival. Under Saintfiet's leadership, Namibia rose 34 places in the FIFA rankings to the highest position they had achieved in the last 10 years. After these performances, the Namibian press nicknamed Saintfiet "The Saint" and one even newspaper called him "The Messiah"
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