Football coach
Bangladesh Football Federation officials are now famous for sacking foreign coaches, right and left. Recently, the axe fell on Brazilian coach Dido. His fault was he did not select experienced players. He did select players whom he thought would do well in South Asian Championship. So it would have been wiser for BFF to decide Dido's fate after the SAF championship. Now we will never know, whether Dido's player selection was a good one or not. Dido did not pick some experienced players, as he had conflicts with those which were never resolved. Dido should have been more lenient toward those players given the fact that the players did apologize. Perhaps Dido was trying to build a team consisting of young players for long-term good results. We should also remember that when a great player falls out of favour because of conflict with a professional coach, that player usually does not get regular playing time and in most cases he has to move to another team. While playing for Villarreal, elegant playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme lost his starting line up playmaking duty, as then Villarreal coach Chilean Manuel Pellegrini (now Real Madrid coach) did not like Riquelme's attitude. So finally Riquelme had to go back to Boca Juniors. But it was Riquelme's brilliant playmaking ability that took Villarreal to Champions League semi-final, a feat they failed to repeat after his departure. That did not matter to coach Pellegrini. World class Dutch striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy fell out with Sir Alex Ferguson that prompted Van Nistelrooy's departure for Real Madrid. A professional European and South American coach's thought process is just like what I describe about Chilean Pellegrini and Scottish Sir Alex.
BFF should remember that a professional foreign coach is unlikely to think the same way as a Bangladeshi professional coach. I heard the BFF president comparing it with Luis Scolari's sacking by Chelsea with BFF's sacking of Dido. But Scholari was sacked because under him Chelsea was not getting the anticipated results. BFF sacked Dido even before he was proven right or wrong with his player selection. So, this comparison is not logical. Of course, his comparison is logical in the sense that the authorities can sack a coach any time.
I would ask BFF to think very carefully before appointing a professional foreign coach, as a foreign coach won't try to please big BFF officials. If BFF wants to take Bangladesh football forward, they must give freedom to the coach and, more importantly, give the coach enough time to prove himself. In my opinion, sacking Dido was a premature decision.
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