Coaches are the key to a successful team: Inside story

by Jobel Varghese March 22, 2018

“Don’t ever ask a player to do something he doesn’t have the ability to do. He’ll just question your ability as a coach, not his as an athlete.”The coach of the western state of Maharashtra Mr.Augusto Wilson D’Silva was not quite contented with his team’s performance but he does not blame them since their goalkeeper Manav Baraskar suffered an early injury that led to his replacement by inexperienced Faizan Akhtar who conceded five goals successively in the second half. The right back Nikhil Prabhu also received an early knock which clearly broke the defense line resulting in faults and hence the major reason why they started to collapse. According to the coach he had full confidence in his goalie who performed very well in the practice sessions ,however due to lack of proper warm up before the game he contracted an injury in the early half of the game. He had no plans for early substitutions but due to circumstances new players had to be brought it who had not warmed up properly as they did not expect an early call.

Coach D’Silva had emphasized on keeping a watch on Bengal’s key player Sumit Das’s movements who had scored a brace in the opening match of the 72nd edition of the Santosh Trophy against Manipur. However the western side could not keep a track of him as he constantly switched sides with midfielder Bidyashagar Singh ,sometimes moving to the right then again coming back to the left totally  confusing their opponents. Mr.D’Silva did not complain about the bounce in the ground or the conditions that prevailed however he was a little concerned about the hot and humid weather of Kolkata that might have affected the performance of his players since it had been only a day that  his players had  arrived and probably there was not much time for them to get acquainted to the weather. The coach had a tough time selecting players as he had a lot of pressure on him from the district associations . Mr.D’Silva also pointed on a number of mistakes performed by his players like lack of coordination between the defenders, series of inaccurate passes and also that  the team could not regroup after conceding their first goal. The Maharashtra team comprising of young new recruits could not maintain ball possession which led to a minute by minute ambush by the hosts.

Ranjit Singh the efficient forward from Maharashtra had scored a total five goals in the qualifying stage of this tournament  and has been consistently scoring for the Union Bank of India in the Mumbai Elite League. However he was not able to create a considerable impact in his first match and could not maneuver his team to score accordingly. He was of the opinion that his players almost parked the bus  and lacked experience in forming combinations after the first goal for which they had to pay the price. He believes that his team succumbed to the pressure created by Bengal and instead they should have continued poaching with more movements inside the opponents side like they were doing  in the initial minutes of the game that earned them their solitary goal . It was a learning experience for the team in the first game and the coach Mr.D’Silva has been modest in accepting defeat and believes his boys will return with a bang in their next game.

Mr.D ‘Silva lauded the Bengal team because of their game sense and experience and feels that there are lot of changes that are to be made in his team in order to get the improvements into effect for their next match against Chandigarh on 23rd March,2018 .

The West Bengal team has impressed us with their outstanding comeback after trailing by one goal in the first half. Coach Ranjan Choudhury should consider becoming a motivational speaker as something went really crazy in the dressing room that ignited a flame in the players leading them to score an impressive five goal victory over the westerners. The former assistant coach of East Bengal surely knows to keep his calm when things do not  go according to his expectations. He did a phenomenal job by boosting  the  confidence in  his team and he knew that motivating his players will surely spark a fire in them that eventually led to  goal scored by newbie’s like defender Monotosh Chakladar, captain Jiten Murmu and super substitute Rajon Barmon  who scored from a side volley ,helped to open their goal accounts with one goal each. The manipuri lad Bidyashagar Singh  who has been training with the East Bengal team has impressed us with a total of 3 goals in two matches.

After being down by one goal coach Ranjan Choudhury was not shaken as he was confident that a motivational talk would do wonders for his team .The Bengal coach wanted early goals in the game so that he could shuffle his players in the second half and give them adequate rest. He wanted them to avoid the possibility of an injury as they matches were taking place one after the other without proper time for recovery. Mr.Choudhury  was happy about the fact that the  number of goal scorers in the team has increased with the maximum goals coming in from the midfielders which gives him hopes of collecting the 72nd Santosh Trophy  title  .

In the first match also we had seen goals from midfielders Sumit Das and Bidyashagar Singh thus making the forward’s job a little easier. West Bengal will try to continue their winning streak as they will be facing Chandigarh on 25th March,2018.