Don’t understand what foreign football coaches have done, asks Jahar Das
Calcutta Football League Champions Peerless coach Jahar Das has lashed out at the demand for having foreign coaches in Indian football and has questioned their contribution. He also went on to add that the foreign coaches have mostly worked as assistant coaches and have no experience with big sides.
After 61 long years, Peerless became the only side, apart from the top three in Kolkata football, to lift the Calcutta Football League (CFL) title. Before the Peerless team, the league was won by a non-East Bengal, non-Mohun Bagan and non-Mohammedan Sporting team way back in 1958 when the Eastern Railways were crowned champions.
One of the major reasons for Peerless’ success is attributed to the work that their coach Jahar Das has done with the side. After winning the CFL title with Peerless, Jahar has spoken against the appointment of foreign coaches by many Indian football sides.
"I do not understand what these foreign coaches have done. Do they only make the players run during the training sessions?" he questioned during an interview with IANS.
"A coach who never worked independently and followed the instruction of another coach, gets a full team to manage. How will it help?" Das further asked.
"They have mainly worked as assistant coaches. Most of them have never been the head coach of any big team. If a foreign coach loses a few matches, the supporters are more accommodating compared to the team performing poorly under an Indian coach. We still think that foreign material is better than Indian."
Before tasting success with the Kolkata club, Jahar had worked with the Aizwal FC. The team from Mizoram were crowned champions in 2017 with Khalid Jamil as the head coach. However, Jahar had also played an important role in the development of the players as the Head of Youth Development at the club and then as coach of the first team before Jamil took over the side. Jahar spoke about the importance of micro training that he did with the CFL Champions.
"There is a kind of training called micro training, which means specific training for a specific group. For example micro training for defence and micro training for the attack. This kind of training makes both defence and attack stronger. And to my surprise, I found the two big teams lack in both these areas," Das explained.
"As a result of this, East Bengal was never allowed to create any attack which converted into goal. Whichever attack they made on that day, were not planned attacks. We could have scored three more.”