Four Coaches in Seven Months
Martin Stano was redesignated on 14 August 2025 — six days into the season, with Sabah eighth. Jean-Paul de Marigny took over the same day and lasted until 18 December, when he resigned with the club ninth, a decision The Star described at the time as a bombshell.
Alto Linus stepped up as interim on 20 December and held the role until 25 February 2026, by which point Sabah had slipped to eleventh. The Spaniard Juan Torres Garrido was then unveiled with roughly a third of the season remaining and no realistic prospect of climbing.
The instability is what makes eleventh place misleading. Sabah’s squad contained Dominic Tan, a legitimate national-team centre-back, and Ajdin Mujagić, who scored seven league goals — level with Penang’s Dylan Wenzel-Halls and JDT’s Arif Aiman in the scoring charts.
This is a club that finished in the top half as recently as the early 2020s, carries one of the largest travelling supports in East Malaysia, and wears Adidas with Sawit Kinabalu on the shirt. The resources are not the issue.
- 14 Aug 2025 Martin Stano redesignated with the club 8th — six days into the season.
- 14 Aug 2025 Jean-Paul de Marigny appointed head coach.
- 18 Dec 2025 De Marigny resigns with Sabah 9th.
- 20 Dec 2025 Alto Linus takes interim charge.
- 25 Feb 2026 Juan Torres Garrido unveiled with the club 11th.
Sabah First-Team Core
A national-team captain at the back, a seven-goal striker up front, and — for the first time in two years — a coach with a full pre-season to organise the space between them.
Core squad members as of the 2026/27 pre-season under Juan Torres Garrido. Kit supplied by Adidas — one of only two Super League clubs with a major global manufacturer — with Sawit Kinabalu, Waig and Sabah Credit Corporation among the shirt partners.
Better Than Eleventh
Read the results and Sabah look like a mid-table side. They beat Penang 3–2 at Likas, won 4–1 away at PDRM, won 3–1 at Terengganu, drew 0–0 with Kelantan, drew 1–1 with Kuala Lumpur City and lost only 1–2 at home to Selangor.
Then read the record: three wins, five draws, six defeats from fourteen matches. Nineteen scored, twenty-nine conceded. The draws were the problem — five of them, including three at home, in a season where converting two would have meant a top-eight finish.
The low point was the 0–8 defeat at Johor Darul Ta’zim in September, in which Figueiredo scored a hat-trick. It came a month after Stano’s removal and three months before de Marigny’s resignation — a snapshot of a club with no settled leadership at any level.
Ajdin Mujagić‘s seven league goals kept them competitive. That total put him joint-sixth in the Super League scoring charts, above every player at Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu and Star City.
The Hardest Trip in Malaysian Football
The Likas Stadium in Kota Kinabalu holds 35,000 — the third-largest venue in the Super League — and requires every peninsular opponent to make a two-and-a-half-hour flight across the South China Sea. That combination should be worth points every season.
In 2025/26 it was not. Sabah drew three of their home matches — against Kelantan, Kuala Lumpur City and Melaka — and lost to Kuching City and Selangor at Likas. Fixing home form is the most concrete, most achievable target of the entire 2026/27 campaign.
The support deserves better. Sabah’s fanbase is the largest in East Malaysia and among the most passionate in the country, and the club’s Adidas kit deal reflects a commercial profile most mid-table sides cannot match.
The East Malaysian derby with Kuching City has become the fixture of the season for both sets of supporters — and, uncomfortably for Sabah, Kuching have won it while climbing to second in the league.
2026/27 Outlook: One Coach, One Season
Juan Torres Garrido arrived in February with a third of a lost season left. He now has a full pre-season, a squad that includes a Malaysian international captain and a striker who outscored every player at four clubs above Sabah in the table.
Everything depends on the board holding its nerve. Sabah changed coach three times in seven months last season and finished eleventh; Kuching City kept the same coach for three seasons and finished second. The correlation across the whole division is hard to ignore.
In a 12-team Super League, with PDRM, Kelantan The Real Warriors and Melaka’s struggles removed or reduced from the fixture list, Sabah’s floor is higher by default. Top six is realistic with continuity. Another mid-season sacking and eleventh becomes the ceiling again.
Our AI engine covers every Sabah fixture in 2026/27. Visit the match prediction hub or the full team profiles index.
Sabah FC FAQ
Where did Sabah finish in 2025/26?
Eleventh of thirteen, after a season in which four different men occupied the head coach role inside seven months.
Who is the Sabah coach?
Spaniard Juan Torres Garrido, unveiled on 25 February 2026 following Martin Stano’s redesignation, Jean-Paul de Marigny’s resignation and Alto Linus’s interim spell.
Where do Sabah play?
At the Likas Stadium in Kota Kinabalu, capacity 35,000 — the third-largest venue in the Super League.
Who is Sabah’s top scorer?
Ajdin Mujagić, with seven league goals in 2025/26 — joint-sixth in the overall Super League scoring charts.
Who is Sabah’s captain?
Dominic Tan, a Malaysian international centre-back and the squad’s most senior figure through the coaching upheaval.
Who are Sabah’s rivals?
Kuching City, in the East Malaysian derby — a fixture that has grown sharply in significance as Kuching have risen to Super League runners-up.
Every Sabah fixture at Likas and on the road is analysed by our AI engine across the 2026/27 season. Head to AI Pro Predictions for data-backed soccer predictions covering Malaysian, Asian and world football.