Opinion Not a Wim-Win situation
Ever since taking over as the national football coach,Wim Koevermans has reiterated the importance of keeping possession and the ball on the grass
Ever since taking over as the national football coach,Wim Koevermans has reiterated the importance of keeping possession and the ball on the grass. India went on to win the Nehru Cup,the first tournament under his stewardship. It is tempting to join the dots.
So did India really get you on the carousel and make your dizzy with their passing as Sir Alex describe Barcelonas short-passing style? Not really. Of the seven goals scored in five games,two came from the spot and one via a strike from outside the box. The rest were headed efforts,from corners and free-kicks. Was the coach then drip-feeding what we wanted to hear all along? Again,not really. Koevermans call for ball-retention was perhaps the more pragmatic way of looking at things.
Maybe it was a canny acknowledgement that posession,for a team like India,meant something mundane not reflexively lumping the ball forward,half in panic and half in hope; or,this,that the time spent with the ball at your feet is the time not spent hurling yourself in desperation into the path of an opponent’s goal-bound effort.
There is no shame in admitting that the Indian team does not have the skill,vision or stamina to pull off the tiki-taka. Very few sides do. What they did instead was to make the best of what they had.
The full backs overlapped frequently and with success because Syed Rahim Nabi and Nirmal Chhetri were India’s best players. The set-piece routine paid good dividend because it was imported straight from the training ground. The long ball,like the one that eventually yielded the penalty in the final against Cameroon,was attempted from deep inside India’s own half,yes,but mostly because there was the target man in Robin Singh to aim for. All of this was set off by or came to pass through a spell of possession,however ragged or temporary.
And as blasphemous as it may sound,it did not make for a completely unedifying spectacle,as the 20,000 who turned up for the final would affirm.
raakesh.natraj@expressindia.com
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