GULF-GOANS e-NEWSLETTER (since 1994)
Football Matters Goa – At the zenith of Indian football Friday, 19. June 2009 - Sujay Sharma The small western state has capitalized on its innate love of the beautiful game and built on it well, and now stands atop the Indian football pyramid. Goa won the recently concluded Santosh Trophy. That too with relative comfort when you consider their defence did not concede a single goal in the whole of the tournament. That end-result surprised no one. But it did make a lot many very happy. A lot of Goans of course, but even many others who yearn for a sustained improvement in Indian football. To these people and more, Goa’s success reflects the success of doing the basics well. And the Santosh Trophy was not the culmination of a process of the rise of Goan football to Indian football’s peak. It is just one of those barometers along the way indicating the reasonably successful efforts taking place. There have been many more such barometers, and will probably continue to be. Four out of the last five Indian league champions have been Goan teams. Dempo thrice in 2005, 2007, and 2008. Churchill now in 2009. Even Mahindra United in their year of triumph in 2006 owed a lot of their success to Goa, with a Goan coach Derrick Pereira, Goan defensive rock Mahesh Gawli, and an invincible run of results on the relatively carpet-like pitch at Fatorda. While the Goan Armando Colaco along with his Goan support staff of Mauricio Afonso and Mahesh Lotlikar with a predominant bunch of local Goan players could all take credit for Dempo’s imperious domination, Churchill Brothers winning of the league also needed a strong Goan hand despite the thrust of Odafe and the North-East contingent of players. For it was the much maligned and rustic Goan politicial Churchill Alemao, blessed with an incredible knack of getting the right foreign striker or coach, who so backed Odafe and the team’s development following their promotion year. Until the floodlights didn’t give way in 2007, and that too not much due to the fault of the Goan Football Association, Fatorda hosted the AFC Cup games of all the non-Kolkata teams. They have three proper football stadiums to host national level matches if required, in Fatorda at Madgaon, Mapusa at Duler, and Tilak at Vasco. They have the first and currently only operational international standard artificial turf facility dedicated purely to football in the whole of the country, at Chowgule College in Madgaon – a facility that is overcrowded with I-League teams scrambling to conduct their pre-seasons during the Monsoons. They have many training fields with enough grass to enable decent passing drills among others, the model one at picturesque Cuncolim often the base of the Indian national team (Most Indian cities, with Mumbai, Calcutta, and Delhi included, don’t have a single level and grass covered football pitch that stays so 365 days of the year). They have the highest number of ILeague clubs for any Indian state (only Maharashtra matches them). They have the only Professional local State league, in the Vodafone Goa Pro League. They have innumerable village tournaments, which are second to nowhere else in the country when it comes to Amateur football, and definitely a cut above the Kerala 7s and West Bengal ‘para’-tournaments that compare closest. They have a large network of youths participating in football tourneys, and with reasonably qualified coaches to coach these future players. They have more AFC Pro-Licensed coaches than from any other state (two in the form of Savio Medeira and Derrick Pereira, with TN having Sounderajan and Meghalaya having Shangpliang – and that’s it!). Mind you, Goa has its limitations too. It can all just not be put down to an inherent passion for football that Goans possess. Ok, to an extent it helps. But if passion were all it took to be the best state in Indian football, West Bengal or Kerala could have been better. If sponsorship and corporate presence was all that it took, Mumbai or Delhi could have been better. If sporting infrastructure was all that it took, Karnataka (Bangalore), Tamil Nadu (Chennai), or even Hyderabad (Gachibowli) could have been better. If sporty physique and diet was all that it took, Punjab could have been better. If skillful and determined players, looking to make a living from football, to alleviate themselves from poverty, was all that it took, Manipur or Meghalaya could have been better. But none are. Goa is at the zenith of Indian football right now. They don’t have the best of most things. But they are making the best of what they have. And the rest of the Indian states need to follow their example in the very least, if not the ambitious and detailed Visions of AFC or the European Associations that are the ultimate benchmark of standards being targeted. http://www.indianfootball.com/ Forwarded by Laurie Miranda "Sing To The LORD a new song, His praise in the assembly of the faithful." - ( Ps. 149:1 ) Goa World www.colaco.net www.goa-world.com/goa/ music/ - The Online Music Station for KONKANI THANKS TO ALL FOR YOUR PRAYERS http://www.jrsbible.info/bible.htm EXPRESSIONS - THE FLOWER SHOP http://www.goa-world.com/expressions/ Gulf-Goans e-Newsletter http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/gulf-goans
