DILI (14 June 2013) – I often hear about the football nostalgia of the ‘good old days; playing on cobbled streets like I did in Anfield as a kid, or having jumpers for goals etc. Recently, I went back in time to Manipur in North East India, where many of the facilities were worse than I had ever experienced in my youth.
However, the football people of Manipur had realized the truism that poor facilities do not make good players and had worked hard to get the best for the local players. So, almost like an oasis in the middle of the capital of Imphal, a state of the art (FIFA sponsored) artificial pitch was laid which has revolutionised the game in the state.
The state had already utilised the AFC support machine and had been part of a Vision Asia project and that had been a great success in generating the volume and quality of players, coaches and referees. But the pitch now meant that these people had a top quality surface to work on and it will be utilised 24/7 as soon as lights are put up.
But electricity might be a problem as often there are power cuts in the state. This also puts the concept of moaning about facilities in perspective. It is great for coaches to demand bowling green pitches but when running water and electricity are not guaranteed for all people, then perhaps sports facilities do fall behind in the priority list.
I spent a month working with the elite Under 20s of the state on a full-time basis. The concept of a Football Education program was funded by the Manipur Development Society and the Manipur FA. An original 90 triallists were cut down to 60 and then in a 3 day process, I had to reduce this to 30.
As usual, the stars stood out and the less gifted also, but there is always the problem of the last few spots and often attitude was the deciding factor. This was difficult here as the attitude of all the players was top class. None of the pampered youth here, many of these kids had travelled days from mountain villages on buses that you only see in museums now!
In essence, the players were chosen on:
- Technical ability
- Tactical ability
- Physical tests (based on Everton FC tests) and as usual the best players were also the best athletes in most cases
- Football Decision making (understanding)
In a broad sense, the goal was to help these players improve their chance of being professional footballers. Many Manipuris had progressed to the Professional I-League and quite a few to the Indian National team, hence the FA wanted to keep this going and increase the numbers and to one day be able to run their own I-League team.
The top 30 were taken into hostel accommodation and given excellent food for this period. I was initially going to undertake a number of physical tests and compare them with results for EPL Academies and professional teams in Asia, but when I went to do the Body Fat test, I saw that my diet and nutrition lecture was going to be changed to just three words “EAT MORE FOOD”. The lads were in great physical shape, lean with good aerobic ability. Obviously the result of the lifestyle here especially for those living in the mountains.
Off the pitch, we talked about lifestyle, psychological preparation and even about ethical values of being in a team-based sport. (Which is so often neglected). But the important work was the twice daily training sessions on the pitch. Originally, I had intended to utilise a rather basic gym program, but then found out that when the players left the camp they had no access to a gym. So they were showed what to do in a gym and why it has great value.
Various programs were illustrated in case they came to use one, but the bulk of the strength development work was undertaken in a “Core Stability” program where no equipment was needed. Even in this, you have to adapt your coaching and I gave each player photographs of Thailand national team players doing this work as an example.
The reason? A few spoke English, most spoke Manipuri (not Hindi) and a few spoke tribal dialects. So verbal translation was an unusual process and I relied on the excellent assistant coaches I had to be football translators.
I had watched the players play and what I felt was that they were technically excellent, derived from many hours of playing in unorganized games, but in many ways “football naive”. For example, they were great dribblers of the ball, but often in the wrong part of the pitch, so the aim was to not lose this skill but show where it was best used.
I explained to the local coaches (as part of the program was also Coach education) that as a kid I had played 60 games a season – school, Boys club and Sunday League. Playing this number of games gives you a game education and helps eliminate things such as ball watching. Also, playing with older men soon gets you out of bad habits, such as not chasing a ball you lost! These kids (men) were only playing about 10-15 games a season due to distance, facilities (pitches are not the best in a monsoon) and organisational problems.
– By Steve Darby (who had previously coached Sydney Olympic [1995-1998], Johor FA [1998-2000], Thailand U23 [2009] and Mohun Bagan [2011] among others)
END OF PART I
