ISL SOCCER FINAL MINUS GOA.
Ater its ignominious exit from the 1982 World
Cup soccer tournament with their most disastrous defeat from Italy coached by their foot-ballcrat
team Manager Eanzo Berzot where their super star forward Paulo Rossi scored one
of the most magnificent hat-tricks in the history of World soccer against the
mighty Brazilian squad of which type Braizil never produced earlier even during
Pele’s era though Pele was genious on the soccer field, the great Team Manager
of Brazil Tele Santana after his team was ousted from that tourney by Italy,
lamented saying “we had everything in our favour except luck which favoured the
Italians”, till they won the final. This
was exactly what has happened two days back in the semi-final of ISL tourney
for Goa where inspite of playing such a wonderful soccer some
When the then mighty soccer team
recruited me for their team SESA GOA as a defender when I was still schooling
at St. Joseph’s High School Arpora, their Coach Mr. Iqbal who was the only
Coach in Goa then from Patiala qualified, while testing my efficiency on the
first day, gave me the first test of
shooting the Panalty kick inspite of knowing that I am a defender but was
satisfied after I attained the success.
Yesterday it was very disastrous
to see FC Goa’s stalwarts one after the other failing in their aims however, I
don’t castigate those who failed in converting their spot kicks either during
the first five penalties or during the sudden kill. Even the highly successful spot kick takers
in the World namely Brazilian Socrates and Zico, French Platini, Argentinian
Maradona and during my time in Goa,
Socurro our left back at Vasco to cite a few relevant examples. The great
Socrates who was Doctor when he played for Brazil and most expert in
converting the penalty in the world, when he failed in converting penalty for Brazil, said: It is agonising to
make the players to kick the ball into the net from the spot kick after playing
for regular 90 minutes plus another 30
minutes extra time. It is difficult for any player to concentrate on penalty
after playing 90 + 30 exhaustive minutes.
In such a situation, neither your legs do not move properly nor your
mind.
All said and done, I must confess after watching all the previous
tournaments from the beginning, this year’s edition was most wonderful and
highly advanced in soccer though none was there having the experience of World
Cup. But almost all the foreign recruits
indicated their calibre and the development of this game in their respective
countries and clubs where they play
their soccer. First time it was shown how the game opens from both the flanks, how
the goalkeeping has improved, how the Brazilian mode of short passing is
implemented and so many other tecnics
and tactics. The only drawback was the poor refereeing that was handled by
those who lacked proper knowledge of laws and
implementations. Most of them suffered
from inferiority complex especially when
they blow their whistles for any
infringement by the foreigners. Such a
poor state of refereeing was not seen in Europe, South America and elsewhere. Besides, the stupidity of the Benchers by shouting
at the referees and other players was
beyond my comprehension.
I am sure henceforth Indian
players will have better opportunities to
learn better ways of playing better soccer in the midst of their
colleagues from other parts of the
World.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
