Pop Quiz Saturday time is here. Ignore the stellar and innovative title given to this brilliant new concept and share with us and yourself the following.
Duncan Fletcher, Gary Kirsten, Greg Chappel and John Wright are familiar enough names. But would you be able to recognise names like Bob Bootland, Joszef Gelei, Rustam Akromov, Stephen Constantine, Bob Houghton and Wim Koevermans?
Maybe not the first batch, as they were tried and failed experiments with foreign coaches in Indian football, but it shows a lot that the last 2-3 names would ring a faint bell with readers.
Indian football is undergoing a slow metamorphosis, an implant of foreign tactics, coaching and administrative methods, a facelift in terms of the style and approach and an achingly slow transfusion of funds from the big daddy sports in the country. The latest foreign coach, the Dutchman Wim Koevermans, joined the national team setup in August, and already has a Nehru Cup in his trophy cabinet.
The signs have been encouraging thus far, as a tactically astute leader manages to make the best of meagre resources on offer. There have been minimal pretensions of looking at ‘possession football’ as the immediate output, as the AIFF would have us believe. The previous permanent coach Bob Houghton, who managed India to some of its great successes in his five year tenure, was removed under the pretext of being focused on ‘long-ball’ football.
As India lost to Singapore 0-2 last Wednesday, there was a sense of a familiar dejected resignation reflected in various reports and post match reactions, which is a bit unfair. This is a young Indian setup, aiming for a long term overhaul of the multiple evils that plague the sport, and as such, deserves to be given time and adequate support.