Will take a while before ISL can match up to European leagues: Coaches, marquee players

Mumbai: Former English footballer Peter Taylor and now coach of the Sachin Tendulkar-co-owned Kerala Blasters FC for Season 2 of the Indian Super League (ISL) believes the three months where domestic players train alongside foreign recruits “are more than enough” to have an impact on Indian players.

“If you have a foreign player that shows good habits and good attitudes in training and in matches, anything like that can rub off. I expect myself as a coach to be able to improve a player in three months,” Taylor, who recently managed the England U-20 team in 2013, said at the ISL Media Day event, here on Saturday.

Quizzed further whether the ISL has what it takes to match up to top European leagues, 62-year-old Taylor, who became one of the few players to have been selected for the senior England team when not playing in the top two flights of a domestic league added, “It’s very early as this is only the second season but I do know that the first season was a success. To me it’s only going to get bigger and bigger. In England there are players who are interested in coming to India, so that’s got to be a good sign.”

What can the organisers do to better this lucrative league? “It’s a short league and it’s a very exciting league. Maybe to have more rest between games might help. We have a game after every four days and it’s not just after every four days, it’s four days in travelling. Sometimes the players may not be playing 100 per cent because they are tired. That’s where I think as a coach I got to pick the right players for the right games,” he said.

Brazilian legend and FC Goa coach Zico feels that the ISL will take time for it to be compared to the best leagues in the world. "The first season was a success but it is too early to compare ISL with top leagues in the world. ISL has done a lot of good in Indian football," he said.

"Three months looks just like a small season rather than playing all round the year. ISL is contributing hugely to the growth of Indian football. Other football clubs can also contribute to ISL. India will have to have one league,” Zico, who is often called the ‘White Pele’ pointed out.

However, FC Pune City’s marquee player and former Chelsea, Juventus and Fiorentina striker Adrian Mutu asserted that although three months is enough for a foreign player to have an impact on a domestic player, it will take a long time for Indian football to match up to the likes of European leagues.

“It’s going to take more than five years for Indian football to come up because you are going to need facilities like a coaching school to teach players how to play and to posses a philosophy about football. Football is not just playing 11 against 11. You have to be patient, but leagues that started off at the Emirates or in USA, started off in the same way like the ISL. Football in India is going on the right track, and hopefully it will get bigger than cricket,” the 36-year-old Mutu, who was a part of the Juventus side that won the Serie-A twice in a row in 2004-05 and 2005-06, said.

Mutu’s coach David Platt, who has been first team coach for Manchester City and England U-21 manager mentioned that Indian players are afraid of making mistakes.

“They play with the fear of being judged every minute. There are instances when an Indian player is in a dangerous position, but he will pass to a foreign teammate because they are perceived to be better with the ball. There are also times when a pass should have been made forward, but instead goes sideways.

I’m trying to give the Indian footballers at Pune the opportunity to express themselves. I want them to go for glory rather than play the safer passes,” Platt, an English former footballer who played at both professional and international levels as a midfielder added.

Echoing the same sentiments of Platt was Delh Dynamos’ John Arne Riise, who spent seven years playing for English Premier League side Liverpool before moving to Roma in 2008.

“If you talk to Indian players it looks like they are going to cry (he said jokingly). They have to be tougher but they are getting there. In the first week of training I was quiet. I hate losing a match be it at training or in a match, so I shouted at them once. Then some of the Indian players said that they might take it personally. I never mean it personally, I always want to win,” Riise made it clear.