Our football
Our national football coach's detailed clinical analysis was published in a local English daily (May 13). His description of our team's deplorable performance in Kyrgyz Stan was masterful! If our team could have played even at a quarter of the quality level of the coach's in-depth analysis, we would have cut a better figure in the tournament. Here I would like to quote the coach. He said "When you have a one goal lead with only ten minutes to go; the usual practice is that all the players will fall back, and launch counterattacks from the box. I found that many of our players lack this sense." Why was this so late to find? Did the coach not train the players in tactics? Was not this format of defending tried out in practice games? Or was it all taught and practised and still the players did not follow instructions? Either way, the blame has to be shouldered by the coach. As an old but very appropriate saying goes: "If the students have not learned, then the teacher has not taught!" The lack is in the skill in teaching (by coach) and not the learning by the students (the footballers)! I hope the coach realises that the failure is fundamentally his responsibility and none other's! He just can't "pass the buck on" by his statement and wash off his responsibility! However, it is now all water under the bridge, but the issue raised here should be seriously considered by BFF and our sports authorities. We must ensure that such expensive outings, with nothing to show, can no longer be tolerated. Why not incorporate a comprehensive result based payment system which is both negative and positive! Apart from actual board and food as decided by the authorities and paid directly, all extra payments will be either positive or negative (deductions from their local based earnings) depending on the team's performance in terms of results in each game. Only then will the eyes and ears of our footballers and the coaches will open to realities, beyond a tourist trip taken for granted!
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