Why domestic coaches will shape India’s FIFA World Cup dream

There needs to be more grassroots focused development to improve football in the country.

Coaches will shape India’s FIFA World Cup dream. But how?

It is a well-known fact that no manager has won the FIFA World Cup ever in the history of the game with a foreign country. Since 1934, there have been 21 editions of the showpiece event and there’s not been one tactical genius who has been able to lift the crown with a different nation apart from his home country. In 86-odd years, nobody has managed to break this trend. Do we see a pattern here?

Certainly. Now, let’s delve into it from an Indian perspective.

India, the world’s second largest country in terms of population (expected to become the largest in the next few decades), has been promised by successive AIFF presidents about its chances and attempts to qualify for the World Cup and the goal has been shifted quite a number of times. The country and the football fans in it, continue to hope, for just qualification, which at this point of time will be equal to winning the Cup in realistic terms. But, is the country and its footballing diaspora doing enough to realize that long-standing dream? Is it developing its coaches?

The Indian Super League, now India’s premier league after getting the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup playoff spots from the Asian Football Confederation, had a rule that forced clubs to have a foreign coach for the first five years of its existence. That rule has now been tapered off and Clifford Miranda, a former India international, led FC Goa into the semi-finals this season, losing out to Chennaiyin FC.

Did the rule help Indian football? No. It limited nationals to restricted roles like assistant coaches and did not even allow them to take over the hotseat in case of a sacking, which happened a little too often. Let’s take a case in point.

The I-League was India’s premier league until the 2018-19 season before the ISL took over. Sanjoy Sen, a footballing brain from Kolkata, had taken Mohammedan Sporting from the 2nd Division to the then top flight and had won the 2013 Durand Cup and 2014 IFA Shield with a relatively weak Sporting side. He was next appointed as the head coach of legendary Kolkata club Mohun Bagan and Sen lifted the I-League title in his first season in-charge, no mean feat.

He won the Federation Cup in 2015-16 with the same club. His track record clearly suggests he knows how to win! After parting ways with Bagan, Sen landed at ATK, an ISL club, as the head of youth development and assisted head coach Antonio Lopez Habas, as he romped to his second ISL title after the inaugural season. Did this limit the full use of his abilities? 

Germany’s global dominance over the sport (won their fourth World Cup in 2014) is not merely by the love for playing the game, but immaculate planning and implementation that has been put into place since 2000. There are more registered coaches in Germany than any other country barring Spain, another footballing powerhouse that lifted the World Cup in 2010. The Bundesliga reported that in 2018, there were 34,970 registered football coaches in the country. Germany has a population of just over 8.5 crore.

Here in India, meanwhile, the population stands at anywhere around 1.5 billion and the country has just a handful of ‘good’ tactical coaches. That’s where we’re missing out. The game needs to be built from the bottom up and a national strategy needs to be put in place. Wim Koevermans tried to put in place a 4-2-3-1 possession-based style during his time as the Indian national team head coach, but it fizzled out as soon as Stephen Constantine took over. There’s no shame in following a different nation’s approach to football if it clicks. 

For reference, look at Spain. The entire country, today, plays a possession-based style of football that took birth under the watchful eyes of Rinus Michels, a Dutch manager. It was further amplified at the Camp Nou by the visionary and tireless approach of the great Johan Cruyff. Pep Guardiola and his diminutive yet very-capable warriors exploited that style to the T, winning everything that there is to be won and thanked Cruyff for the same.

More than a man, the system needs to change. Goutam Ghosh was a coach for the U-16 Indian national team when Jerry Lalrinzuala, Anirudh Thapa, Bedashwor Singh and more such fine talents were playing some great football. The team’s footballing pedigree was better than most youth teams India has ever seen and they matched European opponents with ease. They were brave and played mostly on the ball and scored a lot of goals.

Ghosh, later, retracted to a government job in the State Bank of India. The man, last year, made a comeback and is now working with Mohun Bagan as head of youth development. Bibiano Fernandes, India’s current U-16 coach, has also done a good job in styling a team based on its strengths. His wingers play fast, creative football and are not shy of cutting inside to help the forwards. But, the philosophy keeps changing every two years when a new batch comes in and all work begins from scratch.

This needs to change. There should be just one footballing philosophy that applies through the U-8s, U-10s, U-12s, U-16s, U-19s and then onto the senior teams. In a country as vast as India, this could take upto 20 years just for effective implementation. But, we must look at long-term goals, rather than short-term failures. Japan has a project in place that expects them to win the FIFA World Cup in 2050. They started this project in 2005 and gave it 45 years. They are grooming players, coaches, youngsters and even kids who would go on to realize the dream. 

Even if they fail, they will have a project that would have developed quality footballers and coaches, and a map for the future. 

That is the kind of planning India needs to do. If we are to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, we need to start giving preference to our own players and coaches. If we have to win the World Cup say by 2080, we need to start paying more money to the coaches at the grassroots. They are the building blocks of the future. They are the developers of talent. India won’t progress without them.

The world is yet to see a World Cup winning coach from a foreign country. For a country like India with so much diversity, it will be even more difficult for a foreigner to really gel and build a solid side that incorporates every talented youngster from all corners of the nation. Thus, if India really wants to step up their game on and off the pitch, we need to start from the builders of the building blocks, Indian coaches at all levels should be made a priority. The AIFF needs to take the initiative in the process.

Then and only then, can India make the FIFA World Cup dream a reality!