Sankarlal Chakraborty reacts to Punjab FC's win over Everton in Next Generation Cup 2024

Sankarlal Chakraborty also mentioned the positive impact of Next Generation Cup on Indian youngsters.

Punjab FC’s reserve side produced a memorable result in the 2024 Next Generation Cup where they picked up a 2-1 win over Premier League side Everton’s under-21 side.

The Indian Super League (ISL) side became the first Indian side to defeat a major English side in the ongoing 2024 Next Generation Cup and proved once again why their youth development program is held in such high regard in Indian football.

Sankarlal Chakraborty reacts to defeating Everton

Head coach Sankarlal Chakraborty deserves utmost praise for guiding his young players to this massive achievement. Speaking to Khel Now after the match, he expressed his feelings of pride on the result and explained: “The first thing, as a coach, I’m really happy and proud of the boys. The set-up of Punjab FC throughout the year was excellent.

“We have been trying to maintain our performances from the RFDL (Reliance Foundation Development League) to the Next Generation Cup but the success was evading us.  

“We struck the post and chances kept on being missed. But I kept motivating the players and told them about how the other clubs were telling them that they have been playing well. We were making a few silly mistakes, which we limited today.

“We rectified our errors, went into the game and dominated the game. We dominated the game, both technically and tactically and as an Indian coach I’m extremely proud of this,” he added.

The approach to helping youngsters improve at Punjab FC

Punjab FC have seen individuals like Manglenthang Kipgen and Pramveer excel in the NextGen Cup. When asked if his approach is more focused on helping outstanding individual talents excel or work on an entire team-building process, Sankarlal Chakraborty said: “We had to work with the individuals. We call football a team game, but certain individuals’ brilliance is so high that it helps set the team’s performance aside.

“Of course, we focus on team building first and then at the end of the day, we take certain individual players into the analytics room and tell them their strengths or weaknesses using the video footage.

“That is the ideal picture, it’s like looking into a mirror, and the players can understand the briefs quickly. The special thing about this squad is that the mentality of these players is very strong, which helped us be unbeaten in India. They never give up.

“They are boosted up all the time. The players were told that we were not just representing Punjab FC, but playing for the Indian flag. It’s like the athletes playing in the Paris Olympics, we are playing for our nation as well,” Sankarlal Chakraborty also quipped.

Punjab FC grabbed a fabulous victory against Everton in PL Next Generation Cup 🔥Here's what their young star Manglenthang Kipgen said about his goal 👀#IndianFootballl #PLNextGen #punjabfc #Kipgen pic.twitter.com/zxKabdoMgX

— Khel Now (@KhelNow) August 4, 2024

NextGen Cup’s impact on young Indian footballers

Sankarlal Chakraborty also praised competitions like the RFDL and Next Generation Cup for giving Indian youngsters the necessary platform at the highest level, stating: “There was no high standard tournament like RFDL or the Next Generation Cup. “Now that these players have played 3-4 matches in these high-standard tournaments will give them a lot of expertise. This will give them chances to play even better for India.

“It’ll now become a mission for every club in India that we try to outdo what Punjab FC did because there is no limit to getting better. We will all try to get better and improve the reputation of Indian football.”

Sankarlal Chakraborty urges more game-time for young Indian forwards

Finally, Sankarlal praised Punjab FC’s young forward Umang Dodum and urged coaches in India to give more exposure to young forwards like him, irrespective of their physical stature. He explained: “See, knowing the state of our Indian football, many people keep talking about the advantages of height among footballers. But in football, if you can adapt technically and tactically, then height does not matter. If you look at world football, at one point players like Romario and Bebeto didn’t have any height.

“For example, our Sunil Chhetri and Bhaichung Bhutia – what height do they have? But the foreign coaches in India these days all want tall forwards and playing foreign players up-front. See Umang, he’s a young lad who is 17-18. These players need to be motivated and be given chances to lead a line, then only will they improve the quality of Indian strikers,” Sankarlal Chakraborty finished off with.

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