Indian football needs to improve competition among different age groups, opines Jorge Costa

Jorge Costa was the head coach of Mumbai City FC for the past two seasons; with him guiding the ISL side to a top-four finish in the 2018-19 season, after which they failed to secure a semi-final spot last season. His contract was not renewed for a third season, with the club appointing Sergio Lobera as his replacement for the upcoming season. However, the outgoing coach stated that Indian football needs to improve competition among different age groups, as he believes they don’t understand the game around the age of 15-16 years.

“One thing that Indian football needs to do as soon as possible is to improve the competition among the young players. Indian football players have a lot of quality. Technically, they are very good. But, I have realized that a lot of them don’t understand the game. That happens because they are not given that knowledge when they are 15-16 years of age. And, this has to change as soon as possible,” said Jorge Costa, as reported by Sportskeeda.

Jorge also stressed on the fact how Portugal followed a similar policy and was awarded with instant results, as the European country claiming the FIFA U-20 World Cups in 1989 and 1991. Following which Portugal became a dominant force in Indian football and Costa believes that, India needs to prioritize this project for 6-8 years and also take the players on foreign exposure tours.

“Of course, the process is paramount. India needs to prioritize the project, which will be there for 6-8 years. As I said before, give kids better competitions. Take the national team abroad to play competitions in Dubai, France, Spain, and Portugal. The Indian Arrows is a very good project but just one of those is not enough. There need to be more in Indian football,” added the former Portuguese international.