Bhaichung Bhutia on state of Indian football: “Until and unless work on grassroots is done properly, Vision 2047 will become Vision 3047”

Excerpts:

What are your thoughts after India’s goalless draw against Bangladesh?

Overall, it wasn’t a dominant performance. Especially if you’re playing at home against Bangladesh; Bangladesh’s ranking means you have to dominate and you need to get three points.

For the whole game, we lacked a lot of options in terms of attack. We were only relying on… it was a very predictable kind of attack, where you go past the wing and dribble, pass, cross, and expect Sunil to just head the ball and score.

Everybody can pass, dribble, cross, kick… It is important to gel, to understand what kind of runs (need to be made). There was so much gap between the midfield and the strikers… The entire team movement was lacking a bit.

It’s not that it can’t be worked out. We need a bit more time together. It’s a bit unfair again; we’re not a Premier League or a Spanish League or any big league where you can have 3, 4 days, 5 days of players coming together and then building up. Coach Manolo Marquez also requires at least a year to get his system right.

Goal-scoring has been an issue. Why hasn’t India been able to produce a good striker?

It’s not the striker. Everybody tries to focus on the striker issue but I think football has changed so much now; a lot of teams in the world don’t even play with a striker. The maximum they play is one striker, so I don’t think they’re not producing. A lot of the goals in today’s football are scored by attacking midfielders; they are the ones who are always difficult to track for defenders because they’re running from behind.

If you look at the ISL, a lot of Indian players in that position get an equal number of chances. When you play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, your three attacking midfielders are the ones who are supposed to be very effective and dangerous and score more goals.

That’s why I don’t think we should say that strikers are not getting chances. That’s a rubbish argument.

Even using that logic, the goals aren’t coming. So where is Indian football going wrong in terms of producing a goal-scorer, be it an out-and-out striker or an attacking midfielder?

Till the ages of 12, 13, 14, you play a lot of football, a lot of street football, 5-a-side, 7, 11-a-side. You play plenty, train, work, get those basics, technical things right. But after a certain age, with our system and academies, we’re not really training a lot of the guys to get into position, making those perfect runs, defending in perfect lines, maintaining that shape. Those are technical things that a lot of us in all the academies and grassroots are missing quite a bit.

When you were playing…

We’ve also not gone through… I’ve never learned that. The only time when I learned most was in the last five years before my retirement under a wonderful coach, Bob Houghton. Before that, I had a lot of coaches, foreign and Indian. So, those things you tend to miss and those are the things which you need to start very early, at least in under-13, under-15 tournaments.

Yet, so many different players could get into positions, create chances, score goals back then…

But those days, again, defending was not like today. Those days, your defenders were also not trained to defend in a line, in a shape. You could score. Today’s football has become more of a complete system. It’s important to be smart in terms of passes, runs, positioning. Because your defenders are all trained to mark zonally or man-to-man, or position or shape.

Former Indian football captain Bhaichung Bhutia, during a public rally. (Express photo by Abhisek Saha)

It’s just not technical. It’s also about smart runs; the guy who’s going to release also should be smart enough with the timing of the pass. Look at the last match against Bangladesh. Not a single cross (by an Indian) from the wings landed between the goalkeeper and the defenders and you’re only depending on Sunil’s headers. By the time he gets to his second retirement, he might have a head haemorrhage! (laughs) For the club, for the country, everybody is only trying to cross (the ball) to his head.

You went out of your comfort zone, played outside India and returned as a better player. Sunil did that. Gurpreet too.

The players will have to go out of India to play because it’s too comfortable here. The salaries are very good in comparison to a lot of other countries. But a lot of our players will have to go out, sacrifice their salaries, play in some leagues which are much higher (level), learn and come back. Especially the younger ones.

What should be done so that India can again get competitive, starting with South Asia?

(AIFF President) Kalyan Chaubey just put on paper the (Vision) 2047. Until and unless he starts working on the grassroots properly, it’s just going to be 3047 rather than 2047. The federation should not only talk, we need to start making sure that there is some implementation.

Are you worried about the current state of Indian football?

Definitely. I feel very, very sorry. I’m in the Executive Committee of the All India Football Federation right now, which is the highest body and the kind of ideas and people around, I feel very, very scared.

What makes you feel like that?

We need really committed people to really take the sport forward. We do a lot of grassroots. I know how grassroots is done. There’s a pressure that you need to do grassroots. Then they (states) do grassroots at under-13 and under-15 levels. It’s finished in 15 to 20 days.

And then you will see in the group chats, that every state will say we had 2,500 people participating, we had 1,000 teams participating… and it’s over in 20 to 25 days at max. And then, the rest of the year, those kids, what are they doing? Nothing. So, for 11 months, they’re doing nothing. And here in the group, everybody goes, ‘Congratulations, congratulations!’ ‘1,000 participants, 2,000 participants!’ So all are patting their backs. Is that going to develop the kid? Is that a grassroot (programme)? They’re only ticking that box.