The late Domnick Soares.
In my life I saw lot of footballers
who had very good ball control but only two footballers having perfect
dribbling power, one of them was Babazinho Machado during Portuguese time in
Goa, hailing from Candolim and second the late Domnick Soares from Saligao who
died recently in Goa.
During those days playing for Goa
XI or Bardez XI in the midst of stiff competition from excellent Portuguese
Pakle footballers was something extra ordinary.
Still Babazinho Machado was selected to play for Bardez XI somewhere in
1958 at Mapusa Duler ground. He was an
excellent centre forward of Candolim football team playing in the first division
along with my both the elder brothers, one the late Jose Marie and the other known
as Cheddo. Jose Marie was an ace centre
half while Cheddo was an ace right inner.
During those days Candolim had an excellent team having 5 Pakle soldier
footballers from Aguada-Sinquerim. Dr. Gustavo Monteiro was running the team
and thru his influence the Aguada soldier footballers were acquired.
From that glorious Candolim team,
only Babazinho Machado was selected to play as effective for Bardez XI.
In this Bardez XI team, there were 5 Pakle footballers including that
great Negro centre forward from the then Bemfica, Mapusa. To fit into that team one had to be
exceptionally talented in all the aspects of the game and Babazinho Machado was
having all the aspects to become the perfect player. He was specialist in
taking penalty kicks but his forte was his power of dribbling from the centre
line to the opponent’s penalty area evading all the opponents.
He was making
mockery of the defenders by dribbling them past and scoring beautiful goals. He
was name and fame in Goa then. Because of his highly skillful game he was
getting offers from Salgaocar, Academica, Bemfica, Railways and other teams but
he never accepted those offers till he went to Bombay to settle there on cozy
job. Still he is in Bombay and
occasionally visits Goa. He was an student of Arpora School.
Babazinho Machado’s dribbling was
on lose ball, that means, not magnetizing the ball to his right foot, he used
to keep some distance between his foot and the ball but maintaining full
control over the ball preventing the opponents from snatching the ball from his
possession. When he found the ball he would stop it and then swerve himself
either 45 or 90 degrees, make a fool of his opponent, run with the ball
feinting on both the sides – right and left - and thus evade past at least 3 to
4 defenders and when reaching the Box used to release power packed right footer
keeping many times opponent goalkeepers just standing, gasping for breath.
Many
of the Pakle players specially from Bemfica, Bicholim and Salgaocar used to become
desperate to handle and stop him, sometimes even kicking him from behind but he was very
strong physically having appearance and height of Brazilian Zico.
The other dribbling genius was
the late Domnic Soares of whose type dribbler
till now I never saw, not only in India but even at World level. It is a misfortune
that he was born in black Africa and developed in Goa, if he was born in Europe
he would be world renowned footballer. Between Babazinho Machado and Domnick
Soares, I can easily rate Domnick as Number One dribbler.
Domnick was in glorious form in seventies,
the whole decade of seventy was his forte and best of his football he played in
this decade. His dribbling was totally
different in the sense, while dribbling he used to keep the ball magnetized to
his left foot and turn his ankle towards right and left and accordingly the ball
was turning while his opponent would remain baffled knowing not what to do. In
this way Domnick used to fool this opponents and thus scoring innumerable
goals. Many times I was a victim of his dribbling having failed to challenge
his moves and dribbling.
Maradona was a real great
footballer having very good ball control but lacked dribbling power of the type
our late Domnick Soares possessed.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
