I still believe that team India is on the right way of development-Nicolai Adam

The German spoke after his team concluded their Granatkin Cup campaign bottom of the table...

India U-17 finished their campaign in the Granatkin Cup with a narrow defeat against Tajhikistan. The Junior Colts thus finished bottom of the table in the tournament.

Speaking after the game India manager Nicolai Adam was philosophical and expressed optimism for the future of Indian football. Excerpts.

I love my job, but sometimes it is very hard, as it’s bitter to watch my team lose. I think that this is a good experience for us. Unfortunately, not everything went according to the scenario we developed. But I still believe that team India is on the right way of development.

– What can you say about overall performance of your team during the Granatkin Memorial?

– I can repeat once again that the World Cup is our main goal. To tell you the truth, before the tournament I thought we would lose all our matches. I must admit that we are weaker physically and we are younger than other teams. But I am satisfied with the way we represented India, as we showed competitiveness. I do not want to offend anyone, but I believe that is was not the good play of the Russian team (Russia won 8:0), but the fact that we were not ready to compete against Russia rather. We played very well in other five matches! We had time to create our style and philosophy. Our players are shorter than their opponents by nature. But this has positive sides. If you want to develop, you need to play against taller, stronger and older guys. This is the way to progress. In other case, the German scenario can happen, when the U-19 players were winning everything, but when they got into the adult championship, they almost got lost, because they were not used to play against older opponents. We lacked the last pass on this tournament, but this is a thing that can be corrected over time.

– How do you find the tournament and the time of the year when it is held?

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– It is really great that Russia has people capable of holding this tournament for the 29th time. I can’t stop but saying that I like the tournament and the atmosphere. I am eager to tell everyone about it. And I don’t really understand why my fellow countrymen from Germany stopped coming here, as I know you always send them invitations. So I am ready to help you with that. As for the timing, I am very glad to see Saint Petersburg decorated for the New Year’s Eve and Christmas! (smiling).