AGENCIES, NEW DELHI: Nicolai Adam may well have taken on the mantle of youth development of football on the Indian subcontinent, but the German coach believes the rest of the country is operating on too scarce infrastructure for his efforts to have any telling impact.
The former Azerbaijan technical developmental head also cited the progress his former employer was making on the youth front as a marker for the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) selected Indian national team, whilst calling on coaches to analyse the matches in which developing countries field their teams.
Questioned on infrastructural deficiencies in India, with regards to quality and number of pitches, facilities etc., the former Deutch-Fussball Bund (DFB) developmental coach stressed the need for deep rooted progress.
“That’s the main problem in India,” began the the 39-year-old coach, who has trained in Africa as well, before remarking, “In Goa, the infrastructure is a lot better than other cities. That is one of the main reasons we travel abroad, the lack of infrastructure, pitches and opponents. But thank god for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Championship and the World Cup, the AFC and FIFA will help us now with this. New pitches will be laid out as well. At least for those tournaments everything will be fine.”
“But I’ll say something I have said many times. I get everything I want. But for the little coach here in Vasco who has maybe a school team, where does he do training? That is what I am worried about. On my way here from the airport, I saw a pitch on the left side, where kids were playing cricket, football, it’s not even grass. That worries me. If we want to bring eleven million kids into football, where is the infrastructure? Where do they play?,” further probed Adam.
The U17 coach also raised the point of local bred coaches needing to witness developing countries, who are progressing on the football front, play age-group football first hand to study their ‘playing methods and intensity of play’.
“If I am an Indian interested in football coaching or I already have a license, then it is a must to see these matches. Come, see these matches, study them and see the intensity and speed. I was head of coach education in Azerbaijan but it is not my field here. But we all know what to do. It is a huge country. Everybody interested in football and having a license should come and watch these games.
“As for Azerbaijan, they played 1-0 versus Scotland, they played a draw versus Belgium and they lost 5-0 versus Portugal. So, four points in the UEFA final round, you can see that a developing country can make it. They’re still out, because the margin of their defeat was too high, but they made four points and this is fantastic,” he concluded, eulogizing his former employer’s progress.
