Most Indian players would struggle in Spanish third-tier league, asserts Carles Cuadrat
Former Bengaluru FC head coach Carles Cuadrat feels that most of the Indian players will struggle to play even in the third tier league in Spain. The Spaniard guided the ‘Blues’ to their first-ever Indian Super League title during the 2018-19 campaign but was sacked earlier this season.
Bengaluru FC, arguably the most successful Indian club in the past decade is having their worst season so far, with them currently placed at the ninth position in the table. It was a few days ago that their long-standing head coach Carles Cudrat was sacked following a string of poor performances, with his deputy taking charge of the side. The outgoing manager, in a chat with The Indian Express, shared his views on the level of Indian players and stated that the majority of them would struggle in even the third-tier league of Spain.
“Most of the Indian players, in Spain they will struggle to be a part of teams in Segunda B. Not in La Liga, not in Segunda Division, it will be Segunda B – the third tier. If you see players like Xisco or Aridane, they have been players who mostly played in Segunda B and not Segunda A. And when they are in India, they are superior to the majority of Indian players. There are not a lot of players who could get importance out of the country,” said Carles Cuadrat, during the interview.
Having said that, the Spanish manager also mentioned that the level of players in the ISL is improving, especially the current crop of youngsters, which is likely to make their International debut soon. According to him, the change has been visible in the past 3-4 years.
“But ISL is improving the level, and there are some who could be competitive out of India. Players like Ashique, (Anirudh) Thapa, Sunil, Gurpreet (Sandhu), Arminder (Singh), Suresh… If the players of the U-17 World Cup 2017 generation have the chance to play a lot of ISL matches, they can be a good National Team in 5 or 10 years. Indian football has to be realistic. Indian football is evolving, but we have to see, for example, what will happen next month when FC Goa plays in the group stage of the (AFC) Champions League. It will be a difficult challenge and it will be interesting to see what results are produced,” explained the Spaniard.
“It is improving and the players are developing well. I can say that because for Sunil or Udanta, it was easy to make a difference 3-4 years ago and now it’s not so easy because full-backs in other teams have developed and are getting better players. Tactical systems also have improved, foreign coaches work getting teams more compact,” added the manager.
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