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This is an archive article published on May 4, 2003

Import Duty

The average football-lover who has bothered to switch recently from watching the Premiership to telecast of the National Football League may...

The average football-lover who has bothered to switch recently from watching the Premiership to telecast of the National Football League may have come in for a surprise. The gulf between the two is still vast but they no longer resemble completely different games. Indeed, East Bengal8217;s title-winning match against Vasco showed off sublime skills rarely seen on an Indian football pitch, and not just the Brazilian Douglas8217;s bicycle-kick goal.

It8217;s easy to correlate the two: That Indian football has improved simply because more foreigners are playing here. But that runs the danger of being too simplistic 8212; and also ignores the possibility of the corrolary: that Indian footballers aren8217;t growing because they8217;ve been overshadowed by foreigners.

The trend of recruiting overseas players started proper in the early 1980s when, led by Majid Baskar and Jamshed Nassiri, foreigners flocked by the dozen to the Kolkata Maidan and then elsewhere in the country. Slowly, but surely, they supplanted the likes of Shyam Thapa, Habib and Akbar in lore and legend.

Came, saw, conquered

Overseas players have always found India a happy hunting ground. Their superior stamina, physical strength, speed and skill have helped them shine and kept them in public memory. Among the first was Pagasley, who came from Burma to play for East Bengal in the 1940s. He was followed a decade later by two Pakistanis, Musa and Fakri, who also graced the Maidan. But the wave began with the arrival of the Iranian trio 8212; Jamshid, Majid and the now-forgotten Khabajji 8212; in the late 1970s. Five of the biggest stars:

Majid Baskar: Easily the most charismatic player of his time, The 8216;Thinker8217; brought a different dimension to the game. Quiet, brooding, yet planning moves way ahead of his peers, the midfield maestro became, in 1981, the first footballer in the country to fetch a price of Rs 1 lakh.
Jamshid Nassiri: The perfect foil to his compatriot, Jamshid was everything a goalscorer should be: angry, arrogant, confident 8212; and prolific. He was the highest goal-scorer in most tournaments he played in through the best part of the 1980s. A striker par excellence, he relied more on silken touches than the brute force Maidan spectators would soon see with the African influx.
Cheema Okerie: The best-known foreign recruit of all, and with good reason. He came to India as a Nigerian student and remains as a fish-loving, kurta-wearing jamai. He played for each of the top three clubs in Bengal and top-scored practically every League season. Blew defenders away with his awesome strength; and won supporters over with his disarming charm and open friendliness.
Emeka Ezeugo: He was popular all right, but will be remembered more as the first World Cupper to have played in India. Of course, he spent time in East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, etc a few years before his 15 minutes of fame with Nigeria circa World Cup 1994, but why mention that?
Jose Barreto: The Brazilian second division discard has found his Mecca with Mohun Bagan in Kolkata. The Maidan is his backyard today, and despite Baichung Bhutia8217;s presence in the line-up, it is Barreto the team relies on more often than not.
8212; S. D.

With the onset of liberalisation, football became more commercial, and thereby more professional 8211; in every sense of the term. The imports ceased to be those who8217;d come on a student visa and could kick a ball around, and instead true professionals. As the stakes rose, with money pumped in by the likes of Vijay Mallya8217;s United Breweries, and as the football hub shifted from Kolkata to the west coast, the National Football League was born 8212; in 1996-7 8212; and with it Baichung Bhutia, IM Vijayan and Jo-Paul Ancheri.

With attractive prize money, a format to match international standards and almost no bar on foreign recruits, the role of the imports increased. They were the stars the public came to watch. Mohun Bagan general secretary Anjan Mitra says: 8216;8216;Our sponsors are interested in knowing how many foreigners we are recruiting each year because, according to them, our performance depends largely on them. The crowd wants to see foreigners. And it8217;s true that for the past few years, the highest scorers in India have been the foreigners.8217;8217; East Bengal coach Subhas Bhowmick won8217;t take criticism against the foreigners. 8216;8216;If you get better know-how, you must use it. It8217;s easy to sulk when you lose your place to a foreigner but it makes more sense to observe them 8212; players like Mike Okoro and Douglas De Silva and Barreto 8212; and learn to play like them.8217;8217;

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That8217;s what Alvito D8217;Cunha, who won the NFL Player of the year award, did. 8216;8216;Playing with players like Okoro helps, because they expect you to be at particular positions. And if you play it his way, you get to create a lot of openings8217;8217;, D8217;Cunha says.

Uzbek Igor Shivkirin and the Brazilian Barreto are two of Mohun Bagan8217;s key players, says Mitra, and adds, significantly, that their role isn8217;t limited to playing for 90 minutes. 8216;8216;These players will also go to the Mohun Bagan football academy that starts in June, and spend time with the boys there. I think that even outside of their worth to the clubs, foreigners help in teaching new techniques and methods and training programmes to us Indians.8217;8217;

As a result of that, says PK, 8216;8216;You can see that in recent years the overall standard of play has gone up in India.8217;8217;

8216;8216;Zonal marking was something we just spoke about earlier. It8217;s happening in practice today,8217;8217; says Habib. 8216;8216;When I took the IFA XI to South Africa last year, some of my players, like Syed Rahim Nabi and Alvito D8217;Cunha, were trying to play the way we see on television. I don8217;t know if it was a result of watching television or of playing with good foreign players, but their position-taking efforts and off-the ball play was almost of international standards.8217;8217;

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Indeed, three players from that IFA XI 8212; Nabi, D8217;Cunha and goalkeeper Sandip Nandy 8212; were offered contracts by leading South African club Manning Rangers. Indian football coming of age? Well, at least taking strides in that direction.

8216;8216;Our biggest problem8217;8217;, says PK, 8216;8216;has been to imbibe a professional attitude. But now the local boys are making a superior effort to improve. They are trying to do what they see international players do on television. And they are trying to improve their fitness levels.8217;8217;

As far as fitness levels are concerned, Anjan Mitra says, 8216;8216;All we had till a few days back were 60-70 minute players. That8217;s not the case any more. Our boys have more stamina these days because they need to fight with players from overseas who play at the same level for 90 or even 120 minutes.8217;8217;

But there8217;s also the voice of caution, as expressed by former national coach Mohammad Habib. 8216;8216;When I was coach of the national team, I found that I didn8217;t have good strikers or a good back four. The names I was given were almost completely unfamiliar. That8217;s because the key positions in all the clubs are filled with foreigners. And when I did get four decent backs, there was no cover for them in case of an injury.8217;8217;

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The option, of course, is to alter the rules slightly to bring in a more stringent quota system. By reducing the number to, say, two or three, it will ensure that only good players get a look-in and leave enough slots for locals to enter. And Habib will find enough names he knows when he is handed a list.

8216;Indians wouldn8217;t work an iota more than required8217;

He was known as the Kalo Cheeta, the Black Panther. His game was three-fourths brute force, one-fourth stamina. Skill came a distant third, but the effect he had on Bengal football was electric. Mellower now than Indian defenders and referees remember him, Cheema Okerie speaks from England on how he could have benefited the Indian game 8212; and vice versa

Do you think the impact of foreigners on Indian football has been positive?
It8217;s for the Indian footballers to answer that, but I8217;d like to think that they learnt some things from us. Stamina, power, skill. All aspects. I certainly learnt from them, I learnt that being cool was a virtue.

You obviously brought in a superior level of fitness and physical strength. Do you think it rubbed off on the local footballers you played with?
I think that fitness is subjective. No matter how hard your team works, your individual work in the end determines your superior fitness or the lack of it. True, we Africans are gifted with good physical strength. I could train the whole day. But a footballer8217;s fitness amounts to how much he is willing to stay out in the sun. I know that Kuljit Singh did stay out in the sun quite a bit. In the end, he was a lot better than me. Most Indian players are content with their lot. With an outlook like that, you should be lying on the beach. They wouldn8217;t work an iota longer than required.

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Do you feel Indian football has improved since the early 1980s, when you came to Bengal?
There seems to be a crop of gifted youngsters now, which in itself is a big improvement. When I was playing in India, good teams were limited to Kolkata, Kerala, Punjab and Goa. Now, there are good teams all over the country. The overall standard and awareness has definitely gone up.

The foreigners who8217;ve come to India have performed much better than their Indian contemporaries. Why is that?
There were some very good players in Bengal when I played. Manoranjan Bhattacharya, Bikash Panji, Krishanu Dey, Kuljit Singh8230;How can I leave out Sudip Chatterjee? All brilliant individuals. I think we were successful because we performed with the best Indian players at the time. You see, football came too easy, it was a gift from God.

Other countries have quota systems for overseas players. What do you think would be the effect of something like that for Indian football?
At the moment, I think India should take as many quality players as they can afford. Keep a five-six-year grace period for this, after which they can introduce a quota system. For now, they should concentrate on mixing up with quality players from the world over.

8212; Interviewed by Shamya Dasgupta

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