India football coach Sukhwinder Singh may be have fallen out of favour with the All India Football Federation (AIFF), who are contemplating axing him after the national squads dismal showing at the recent tours to Pakistan and Fiji.
The senior side drew, won and lost a match against the Pakistanis, while the under-23 side lost all three matches in Fiji.
However, the players who played under the veteran have total sympathy for their coach.
A coach cannot be held for a teams debacle, says Mahindra United and India skipper Shanmugam Venkatesh. There are a lot of factors that are responsible for a defeat and these must be taken into consideration, he added.
Apparently the Fiji tour was not well planned out giving the players no time to rest and regroup.
It was a long journey to Fiji and the next day after we arrived only we had to play a match there was absolutely no time to relax and get acclimatised to the conditions, Venkatesh said.
Goalkeeper Sandip Nandy felt that any coach must be given an appropriate timeframe within which his performance must be evaluated. He was with us for hardly a couple of months before and after the Pakistan tour.
How can a coachs destiny be decided over such a short period, he asked.
Striker Abhishek Yadav too insisted that the coach was being given an unfair deal. There were other factors that could have affected our performance.
For example, in Pakistan the ground conditions were very poor and besides in the last two matches, which we played under floodlights, the aerial ball was simply unsightable. If a team struggles due to the poor conditions theres nothing much a coach can do, Yadav said.
Yadav and Venkatesh however accepted the fact that the AIFF was looking at building a side for the forthcoming Doha Asiad and some chopping and changing was inevitable.
But both felt that coach Sukhwinders past successes should have been taken into consideration before giving him the boot. Venkatesh resigned to the decision: Welcome to Indian football, he said rather cheekily. Bhowmick scoffs at AIFFs coach selection procedure Sanjjeev K Samyal
sanjjeev@mid-day.com The best man for the job may not even be in contention at all, as the All India Football Federation experiments with a new selection policy for the post of the national team coach.
There are not many takers for AIFFs selection policy based on the procedure adopted by its cricket counterpart, the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
It is the most hilarious thing I have heard in 2005, said East Bengal coach and former India striker Subhash Bhowmick, ridiculing the AIFFs decision.
AIFF will be going the BCCI way and have decided to call all aspiring coaches to send their application by September 18 and the short-listed ones will then be asked to appear before a four-member expert panel. It was also decided that each zone can recommend two names for the coachs job through the vice-presidents.
Football is a different ball game (compared to cricket). Nowhere in the world is such a selection policy followed. Either a coach is directly appointed by the Federation or it forms a committee which short-lists couple of names and then invites them for presentation, reasoned Bhowmick, who was tipped to be a strong contender for the job before the AIFFs current announcement.
Air-India coach Bimal Ghosh voted the best coach in the inaugural NFL also held a similar view. I wont be applying, neither do I believe in giving a presentation. I believe that the most deserving candidate should be offered the post, said Ghosh.
Criticising the selection procedure, Ghosh explained: In cricket the coach does not have much role to play, where as in football a coach is the main decision maker.
Mahindra United coach Derrick Pereira too did not agree with the idea of sending applications. I have a contract with Mahindra and I havent even given a thought to it, said Pereira.
I dont understand it. If they do not get enough applications and only some undeserving candidate apply, will the committee give him the job? According to me, they should shortlist candidates who are qualified and invite them, said Pereira.
Salgaocars coach Shabbir Ali and former coach Savio Medeira also expressed their unavailability for the job.
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