Cost cutting in Coaching!

Novy Kapadia

Indian football’s honeymoon with foreign coaches is on the wane. Shillong Lajong’s coach, the 61 year old Scotsman Desmond Bulpin, was fired last week and replaced by his assistant Thongboi Singto. This popular club is coming 9^th in the I-League but has not won a match since November 28, a round 8 encounter. The club management felt that Bulpin had nothing more to contribute and so opted for a lesser expensive local coach. During his tenure in Shillong, Bulpin had set up a junior squad and a fine gymnasium but football coaches are judged by results.

A perusal of the I-League table reveals that four of the top six clubs are being coached by Indians. Churchill Brothers (Mariano Dias and Subash Bhowmick), Dempo (Armando Colaco), Pune FC (Derrick Pereira) and Mumbai FC (Khalid Jamil) are coming 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th and 6^th respectively. In fact the clubs in the bottom half of the table, are except for Air India, all being coached by foreigners.

Club officials should realise that a foreign coach does not possess a magic wand or superior knowledge which can bring instant success. Developing a team is a painstaking process, the right choice of players at the start of the season, ample substitutes and a good junior development programme. There is no short-cut to success, evident from the examples of United Sikkim FC and Prayag United.

The Gangtok based, United Sikkim FC had been launched with much fanfare, with former national captain Baichung Bhutia taking a lot of initiative. Belgium’s Phillip de Ridde who had two earlier stints with East Bengal was roped in as chief coach.However after the humiliating 1-10 defeat to Prayag United in Round 5, de Ridde was removed. The I-League youngest ever coach, 27 year old Australian, Nathan Hall took over in the 11^th round. Hall, had coached earlier in Thailand, but has been unable to revive United Sikkim’s fortunes. They are second last with ten points from 16 matches with just one win and eight losses. Similarly big-money spenders Prayag United were needlessly impatient with the local coach Sanjoy Sen, who had handled the team efficiently. But Sen was needlessly removed. His replacement Eelco Schattorie of Netherlands has not really had the Midas touch. Prayag United has lost seven and won six of the 13 matches played since Schattorie took over. This expensively assembled team (estimated cost about Rs. 15 crores) with stars like the prolific striker Ranti Martins, Gourmangi Singh, Subrata Pal and Costa Rican midfielder Carlos Hernandez (played in the 2006 World Cup) is not in the running for the title.

So are expensive foreign coaches worth the cost unless given long term contracts like Trevor Morgan of East Bengal.