Congratulations to FC
Goa for their victory against Jamshedpur FC on 11th of this month at
Fatorda Ground, Goa. My full admiration
to Lanzarote for scoring both the goals of FC Goa but the second one was just a
class by itself and his ingenuity. However, discipline wise he proved to be
very bad having no control over his temperament. Having played in the West in
more grueling competitions he should have taken this tournament in good
strides. Losing his temper for any trivial incident that is very common in the
game like soccer is his weakness which he should correct or his coach should reprimand
him as was done to the great midfielder of Brazil of 1970 World Cup winning
team, by his Team Manager.
Arguing with the
referees especially by the Western players as it is seen in this tournament,
proved how low they consider the Indian umpires though the Indians are lacking
in wielding strong control over these matches. Psychologically the Western
players are having very low opinion of the Indian Referees and since this is
the case the organizers must introduce Western Referees to supervise the
matches of this tournament. During Portuguese rule in Goa, the Pakle
footballers used to defy the decision of Goan Referees and because of this many
of the encounters had to be abandoned. Those Portuguese Pakles had very low
opinion of Goan Referees because many times these Goan Referees were guilty of
wielding strong control of the situation. By the way, the decision of awarding
penalty to Goa against Jamshedpur FC was the right decision because
infringement in the box is penalty. The
equalizer of Jamshedpur FC was absolutely the mistake of Goa’s defense that
left the 3 opponents totally unmarked to score the equalizer.
The greatest weakness
of FC Goa is their defense where every defender acts as dribbler in his own
goalmouth. Such tactics are risky. The
greatest Brazilian Coach, Tele Santana in 1982 World Cup in Spain, made the
biggest mistake by not prohibiting his defenders from dribbling the ball in
their own citadel instead of releasing the ball first time to safer area,
against Paolo Rossi’s Italy and thus exiting miserably from that World Cup. In
fact that year’s Brazilian squad consisted of the mighty players as never seen
before neither in Brazil nor in the World elsewhere. Even the 1970 Brazilian
World Cup winning squad and keeping the Jules Rimet Trophy for good for Brazil
by winning it for the third time, was not as powerful as this 1982 squad.
It was known in Brazil
that year in 1982 that Brazil squad was certain to win that year’s final and for
this reason many well wishers of this squad in Brazil while leaving for Spain
to participate in the 1982 tournament hailed them as World Champions in advance
only. But ultimately something different
happened in Spain when Brazil were defeated by Poulo Rossi’s Italy when in fact
Paolo Rossi scored the magnificent hat-trick that finally sent Brazil squad
straight to home empty handed. Some of the magnificent players of that
Brazilian 1982 squad were Zico – Socrates – Eder – Serginho – Junior. I am yet to see again another Eder. That squad was beautifully groomed into a
perfect homogeneous entity by their great Coach Tele Santana whose knowledge of
this game was extremely high. Besides he
was the very good reader of this game.
The management of FC
Goa by using Goa’s name, fame and image should rise to the occasion and hire at
least a top first division German or English or South American Coach by keeping
at his disposal all the requirements needed to produce the first class outfit
where more Goans are made to fit in the team. This year FC Goa lacks more Goan
players when Goan players should have been given greater representation taken
into consideration the name of the team.
The management of FC Goa should not think they got the name on Rent.
Every second player of FC Goa is a non Goan, why is this and who is responsible
for this?
The huge number of
vociferous Goan spectators supporting and applauding the FC Goa has anytime
realized the injustice done to the indigenous Goan players by the commercial
oriented management of FC Goa? The Goan
spectators should not give an impression that they are also hired by the FC Goa management. Are there no footballers in
Goa to represent FC Goa? Is Goa otherwise so rich in producing soccer players
suddenly gone bankrupt in this field?
And by the way, what efforts the non-Goan owners and management of FC
Goa made to produce indigenous players to represent FC Goa? I must caution the current non-Goan owners of FC Goa that the
name of Goa is not for sale nor for rent and they should not misuse the very
good image of Goa in soccer to gain them commercially and politically.
Goa may be small in
length and breadth but surely very wide and big in the field of soccer
producing finest players of which type India is yet to produce. The achievement
of Goa in this field are worth admiring. The first match played in Goa under
flood lights was somewhere in 1956 which was very early. The Arpora School of
St.Joseph’s High School, had the unique distinction to play against the
visiting German soccer team in 1946 proving that even the standard of school
soccer teams in Goa was high. Some of the Goan players after developing in Goa
went to Bombay and Africa and earned name and fame for them as best
players. The football is running along
with the blood in the veins of Goans and as per Goan tradition the first toy
given to the new born Goan child is a small ball.
From the events taking
place it looks to me the owners of FC Goa, the owner of Casino is not much
interested in developing Goan soccer, I have a feeling his interest in taking
over FC Goa was only to promote his business by gaining the goodwill of Goans
and besides the money collected from the sinful Casino will never help Goa to
develop Goan soccer. Sin and development
will never go together specially in the land that is dedicated to Saint Francis
Xavier calling it “Saibachem Goem”. It is an insult to St. Francis Saib to use money
collected from his land thru sinful methods to utilize it for the spread of
soccer. As a priest, I am sure St.
Francis Xavier must have played soccer
as a seminarian and as such he must surely have love for this sport but he will
never bless the spread of this game financed thru sinful money.
However, inspite of
what I said above, money should not be a hindrance in India to develop soccer
by hiring top players and coaches from all around the globe preferably from UK
or Germany or Argentina. To do this, the
organizers and promoters of current soccer teams must be ready to spend money
if they are really interested in developing our football in the country.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
