All key quotes from Manolo Marquez's press conference ahead of the Maldives match

Manolo Marquez opened up on the upcoming game, Sunil Chhetri, and the future of Indian football.

Indian national football team head coach Manolo Marquez is looking forward to the upcoming friendly against Maldives as they face each other at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Shillong on Wednesday. The Blue Tigers will face the Red Snappers for the first time since the 2021 SAFF Championship group stage.

The previous encounter saw India secure an important win as they progressed to the tournament final courtesy of goals from Manvir Singh and a brace from Sunil Chhetri. While much time has passed since that last meeting, the Red Snappers will be keen to have some revenge of their own against Manolo Marquez’s Blue Tigers.

Ahead of the upcoming international friendly, Manolo Marquez was part of the pre-match press conference, where he shared his insights about the upcoming game, the return of Sunil Chhetri, and the future of the Indian football team.

Here are the excerpts from the official press conference:

Q: Are you going with a full-strength squad or are you going to test your bench strength against Maldive tommorow?  

“Good question. It’s still 24 hours for the game. I don’t think that we will play with the same team that we played against Bangladesh. But, obviously, you cannot play with 11 players tomorrow. Well, you can, but maybe it’s not the best if you want to prepare the game. But, I’m very confident in all the players and it doesn’t matter. It’s not very important if we play this or play that. I think that it has to be a good game, and good preparation for Bangladesh. And, obviously, some of them will repeat on Tuesday. But you never know what will happen during the game,” said Manolo Marquez.

Q: Will Sunil Chhetri be performing tomorrow?

“I was prepared for this question. He will play, let’s see. For sure, in some minutes he will play. I don’t know if it will be a starter or it will be from the bench. But I think that he will play few minutes. No, in this game there are six substitutions and 17 players have the possibility to play. And I think that Sunil will be one of them.” said Manolo Marquez.

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Q: What do you see in the future of the Indian team in football? Because when we talk about fans, we have so much fans in India. Football fans, especially in this part of the country. They expect a lot from the Indian team to reach World Cup. So what do you see in the future of the Indian team? 

“I can’t speak. I don’t have enough time to speak about it.  Because we can speak seven hours. This is very difficult to speak about. The only thing that I can tell you is that there is a space in 1.5 billion population. There is a space for more than one sport. One day, one famous player in India said that maybe India is not a country of sports. And maybe it’s true. Suddenly appeared one guy who throws javelin and he is world champion,” said Manolo Marquez.

Manolo Marquez added, “Some good results in badminton, some good results in hockey. But football in the 50s or 60s, maybe we need to have this infrastructure. Not only in football, but in other sports. Then for sure with this population, same as China. But China is good in a lot of sports. Not in football. Obviously, every sport, not only football, every sport starts with the graduates. With kids playing football, with scouting, with facilities, with coaches. It’s a big chain. And the last part of the chain, I repeat again, is the national team. I know that everybody wants to win. We want to win and I think that we will win. Yes, but the main part is to start from the graduates.”

Q: We have the fourth-highest goal-scorer in the world. What is it that we are lacking? 

“It’s not. It’s not about lack or bad luck. There are a lot of factors. Maybe still we don’t have enough quality to arrive to the level that everyone is expecting. But again, finally, this is a process. This is a process. I feel that in the future, but I don’t know if it will be 10, 15 or 25 years, in the future if India starts to work from the graduates again, India will get good results for sure,” said Manolo Marquez.  

Q: Hast international friendly, you gave 3 to 4 players a debut for the national team. And in this current squad, there are 4 or 5 players who are waiting for their debut. So can we expect some debut for tomorrow’s game? You mentioned about Sunil Chhetri. Is there any gap in India’s squad that we cannot produce goals for us? 

“The first question was the debut. There are how many players? 4 or 5? Probabilities are there because 17 can play. I think there can be players who play for the first game. About the other question, I think it is very simple. I am a coach of a club also. And all the clubs, even Sunil is not playing a striker. He is not playing a winger. He is playing like a winger inside, in the left side. But the reality is that, in Indian football, there are some strikers, but they are not starters,” said Manolo Marquez. 

Manolo Marquez added, “People speak about I-League. In my opinion, there is a difference between I-League and ISL. In my opinion, when you arrive at the top level, you have to play against the strongest opposition. And the strongest opposition in India is in the ISL. To play 2, 3, 4, 5 good games in I-League is not enough. You need to perform good in ISL. But it is a chain. There are no strikers in ISL. There are strikers, but practically they don’t play. They play a few minutes. But the other thing is that there are a lot of players who are strikers. And because in ISL everyone plays with foreigners in this position, they are playing as a winger. But Irfan, for example, is a striker. He is playing as a winger, but he is a striker.” Manolo Marquez added.

Q: How important is it for Indian football to have matches in diverse regions like the North East to encourage local talent? 

“We feel great to come here in Shillong. It is the first time our national team will be playing in Shillong. The North East is known for its fan following for football. Football is the biggest sport here. Playing here and taking football to diverse regions is a great thing for football. It is great that it allows young players or youngsters to come and watch us and take motivation from that and become great players.” said Manolo Marquez. 

Q: Can we expect that during tomorrow’s friendly game, you will apply some Tiki Taka to play? 

“You know that Tiki Taka is a despective word. Everyone speaks about Tiki Taka like, wow, Spain Tiki Taka. When someone invented this word, it was to speak deceptively about how the Spanish team, Barça, Real Madrid or the Spanish national team play. I understand you. It is about combining the players’ touch, the combination between the midfielders and the wingers. Finally, there are a lot of different styles. The main thing is to win the game,” said Manolo Marquez. 

Manolo Marquez added, “But obviously, there are different ways to win. We have here 24-25 players. You know that it is completely different to train in a club than in a national team. In a club, you have pre-season, you have training sessions every day. During the week, you have maybe four or five practices. In the national team, sometimes you have one week, sometimes you have three days. It is more difficult. This is the reason that usually, you need time and usually, you need to find the correct group. 

“Sometimes people don’t understand, why do you call this player again? Because we are working more or less in the same way during the different FIFA windows. If you are changing 15 players every time, it is different. I know that there are some players that are in good shape that you have to call them. But more than tiki-taka, the thing that we need to find is a style to implement for the future. Not only for these two games.” said Manolo Marquez.

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