Plans change, game doesn’t
2019 is a year of fresh starts for Indian football. There’s a new national team coach coming after Stephen Constantine bid adieu post the Asian Cup and the long-list has some impressive names on it. Also imminent is the arrival of Isac Doru as the country’s first full-time technical director in two years. The Romanian brings with him an impressive resume, having collaborated in the past with the likes of Arsene Wenger, Carlos Queiroz and Bora Milutinovic.
Strangely enough, the vision for Isac has already been laid out for him. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) unveiled the latest of their four-year plans in March. Given that the inaugural one (the much-maligned Lakshya masterplan) was authored (with a bit of help from a couple of AIFF officials) by the then technical director Rob Baan, one might have expected Isac to have some kind of input in the document that he is supposed to help implement over the next four years. Nevertheless, it has got some impressive ideas in it with the AIFF, at the time of its unveiling, claiming that they had kept the next 25 years in mind.
So a new dawn, then? A new technical director to help implement freshly laid out plans and a new coach to take the national team on from the highs (at least in terms of rankings) of recent years? Fans who have recently hopped on to the roller-coaster ride that is Indian football could be forgiven for optimism. But long-term observers of the sport in the country would be feeling an escalating sense of deja vu. They’re not imagining it.
We have been here before. We’ve experienced that sense of excitement that new personnel and plans bring with them (yes, even Stephen Constantine). Dutchman Wim Koevermans’ appointment came a year after a similarly disappointing Asian Cup and was followed a month later by Baan unveiling his masterplan at a fancy function in New Delhi. That plan too said all the right things; a structured youth development programme that took into account even the lowest of stakeholders like teachers at schools and parents, the development of a ‘national style of play’ that was going to be instilled in kids at the various age groups and the idea that kids aged 6-12 should be playing small-sided games.
Baan’s suggestion that the AIFF should seek technical support from the Dutch FA, coupled with Koevermans’ appointment led many, at the time, to theorize that this new ‘national style of play’ would involve players keeping the ball and spraying it all over the pitch. Yet at the Asian Cup (and in the matches preceding that), we saw Constantine resorting to route one tactics that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Tony Pulis’ Stoke City. ‘Laying the philosophy of Indian football of the future’ was one of the many things AIFF secretary Kushal Das has tasked Baan with doing. What was on display at the Asian Cup certainly wasn’t what Baan had on his mind.
When Baan took over in 2011, one of his earliest interviews brimmed with optimism. “We will start with the establishing of regional academies and elite centres where we can bring the best staff together,” he was quoted as saying. “After that, we will focus on grassroots, organise and establish a pathway for our talent.” Three years later, he was gone. Four years after Baan spoke about a pathway for talent, Nikolai Adam found himself holding open trials at the remotest corners of the country to pick a team to field in the U-17 World Cup. Seven years later, AIFF still has just the one operational academy in Goa.
“There has been no consistency when it comes to people or philosophies,” says former Mohun Bagan coach Sanjoy Sen, who was involved in India’s youth coaching set-up under Baan’s predecessor Colm Toal. “First, you had Toal and Bob Houghton. Then you brought in Baan and Koevermans, who had a completely different outlook. Koevermans tried to introduce a possession-based style of play, but the players need a lot of time to adjust to that. But then they went back to Constantine. I don’t know Isac (Doru); he has an impressive resume. But the question is, will he be given enough time?”
In seven years, Baan’s plan should have revolutionised Indian football, yet we find that not much has changed in the quality of football that the team plays. Yes, the rise in rankings were unprecedented and AIFF deserve all the credit for that, as does Constantine and his team for backing up their effort on the field. But in 2011, India finished last in a 16-team Asian Cup with the worst goal difference among three teams that had zero points. Eight years later, India were the best team to not qualify for the last-16 stage, essentially leaving them 17th out of 24. The rankings might indicate that the Blue Tigers have made a lot of ground but their performance, in the biggest tournament that they will get to play, indicates otherwise. That one of the other teams who finished on zero points in that 2011 tournament — Saudi Arabia — went on to play the 2018 World Cup is a sign of what could have been.
This is not to say that India football has virtually stood still since 2012 — visible progress has been made on a number of fronts. But has that been enough? Even a lot of achievements that AIFF president Praful Patel lists out in the latest strategic plan — the success stories of the 2014 plan — feels like it should come with riders and clauses. Patel speaks of how the number of referees has increased, yet there were almost weekly complaints about the quality of refereeing in the I-League and ISL. The Indian Women’s League is mentioned as a success story yet a 14-team, one-month league played out on a single ground feels like anything but. Most of the I-League and ISL teams too couldn’t care less about it, with Gokulam Kerala the only one among them to field a team.
Even a fact that should count as a legitimate achievement — the number of certified coaches increased from 1215 to 6501 — feels distorted when you take into account that a significant percentage of that (50-60 per cent according to Western India Football Association CEO Henry Menezes), has been the work of one state body.
If AIFF officials play it right with Isac and give him enough time (the rumoured three-year contract he has been given suggests otherwise), then in the introduction of a strategic plan 10 or 12 years later, the then president may get to boast about actually taking Indian football to the next level and not have people poke holes in his claims. But, will they?