Goal.com

12-Aug-2012 9:25:00 AM

The Dutchman explains as to how he plans to get Indians play the passing brand of football, something which they haven’t really been used to…

Wim Koevermans has quite a task ahead of him. He has been entrusted with the job to ensure that the Indian national team changes its style of play to a more attractive version of keeping the ball on the ground rather than hoofing it over at every instance.

Yes, he does hail from the land where ‘Total Football’ was introduced, and he was also among the lucky few who had the opportunity to train under the legend who introduced this concept.

“I’ve met different coaches at the top level and I’ve learnt from all of them. Mr. Rinus Michels is one of the best coaches Holland ever had and I had the opportunity to play for him in the 1988 tournament in Germany where Holland won the European Championships.

“He has had a great influence in the style of play that made Holland so well known all over the world in the past years. Every coach in Holland is influenced by him,” Koevermans told Goal.com.

Michels was renowned for recognizing the talents of his squad and allowing them the freedom to express themselves on the field, and also trusting that they would do the right thing as football “makes itself on the field,” as stated by the legendary coach himself.

For those expecting Koevermans to come in with a magic wand and change the manner in which football is played in this part of the world would be in for disappointment as that certainly won’t happen so soon. Want to know why?

Why can't we pass the ball like Barcelona do?

When Manchester United were humiliated by Barcelona at Wembley in the 2010-11 Champions League final with a 3-1 defeat, Sir Alex Ferguson, probably for the first time, was left astounded by the football played by the opposition.

Having recovered from the traumatic experience of seeing his wards not managing to string together a couple of passes on the field against Pep Guardiola’s side, Ferguson, a couple of days later at the victory parade of winning their record 19^th Premier League title, explained the reason why they will never be able to compete with the likes of Barcelona unless their system changes for good.

“People have to understand the mechanics of the industry we are working in. We are only allowed to coach youngsters for an hour and a half, they [Barcelona] can coach every hour of the day if they want to. That's the great advantage they have got. It is a fantastic philosophy,” said Ferguson highlighting the fact that Barcelona coaches get to spend more than 8000 hours of coaching a kid between the ages of eight to sixteen while comparatively the English only manage 2000 hours. Add to this the restriction of having to pick the talent only from areas from where the training centre is not more than 90 minutes away.

"We hope that in years to come our coaches will be able to spend more time with young kids, to teach them the basics, the technical abilities and the confidence to keep the ball all the time. We are good at it, but not as good as Barcelona at this moment in time. It is a wonderful challenge and we should always accept a challenge,” the Scot added.

Most of these players who play the ‘tiki-taka’ brand of football today have undergone several thousand hours of training at the famed La Masia academy and what one gets to see on the field is only the final product of the hard work put in at an early age.

Ranjan Chowdhury, the former Tata Football Academy (TFA) and present Pune FC academy director, highlighted that the scouting system in India begins far too late and hence what the academies in India do with boys at the age of 14 or 16 is more or less a patch work job as they are made to train twice a day in order to compensate for the hours of training missed out on at an earlier age, in the hope that it shall work.

Ranjan Chowdhury points the flaw in the scouting system

“Every kid must undergo at least 10000 hours of fundamental training. The reason why we train five hours a day is so that this can compensate for the basic training he missed from the age of 8. After the age of 12, you can only develop 20% more. To rectify this, the system in India needs to change. I’ve stayed abroad and seen that they start at an early age of six whereas at TFA, we would recruit players at the age of 14,” Chowdhury explained.

Dr.Vece Paes, father of Indian tennis star Leander and doctor of the country’s David Cup team, only confirms the above by adding, “If we want to develop an elite player, we need to employ the right training system which begins at the age of 8-to-14. You focus on speed and skills – the tactical side of the game, from the age of 16 onwards there is a stress on physical and mental fitness. This is the new mantra followed all over the world except India.”

And even when we say that the boys are recruited at the age of 14, it’s an overstatement of sorts given that most of the youngsters are overage as was seen recently in Kalyani where out of the 120 boys selected from the Mir Iqbal Trophy, at least 84 were transgressing the age limit.

The above just puts into perspective the assignment Koevermans has on hand and the Dutchman isn’t slowed down in his efforts to improve and change the system effectively.

“While developing players, one of the best effects one can create is to organize ‘The best with the best against the best.’  The effect of it is that players have to step up a few levels to be able to compete with the best players. They train together almost every day and play matches every week. The players will increase in their abilities impressively.

“Creating better opportunities for the younger kids is one of the targets for the future and will in the long term bring even better players into our Elite Academies.  Working with them on a daily basis will give the coaches (also the best) the opportunity to encourage them to play in a certain style and teach them how to live as a professional player,” he replied.

One certainly hopes that this works out and we wish him all the best. The Nehru Cup is only the beginning…

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