Rohit Bhandiye
THE GOAN PANAJI
Alberto Colaco has been into football administration for more than four decades, either as AIFF secretary, GFA secretary or being associated with any football club in Goa.
The veteran football administrator feels that India’s domestic league has to be very strong if the country needs to do well in football at the international level.
“Every country that is doing well in football at the international level, their domestic league is very strong. When the local league is strong, then the level of players improves. The quality of play improves. You have seen ISL or I-League matches. Over the years, the quality of play has deteriorated. So, we have to improve the standard of play. We need to make both these leagues more competitive. According to me, there may be less teams, but there should be better teams, more competitive teams. Also, the second division, third division football leagues in India should be made more competitive,” the former AIFF secretary (2001 – 2010) told The Goan.
Colaco said that India will need to have a long-term strategy, stick to its plan and work really hard if the country needs to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in the near future.
“There is no magic to qualify for World Cup or even for Asian Cup. You need to work hard and work with a plan and have a lot of patience. Japan started a program in 1994 to win the World Cup in 2050. And they have been implementing that plan. Also, their domestic football club league J Lague is very strong. In India, we have had many plans, but due to certain changes of coaches, certain changes of committees, we have deviated from it. Whether it's a coach or whether it's a plan, it has to be given time. You can't get results overnight. You have to have patience and you have to stick to the plan. Make revisions, make reviews, but we have to stick to that plan,” Colaco said.
Colaco further added, “In 2005, we had a government plan to improve our rankings and to be among top-20 in Asia. We achieved that. We qualified for the AFC Asian Cup in 2011 after 24 years by becoming the champions of AFC Challenge Cup in 2008. We could have continued with that plan. But, our campaign at the Asian Cup was not good because we had very strong opponents. Later the coach was also changed.”
India has a lot to learn from Japan. Today, Japan is the best football playing nation in Asia. Until 1990s, Japan was mostly a small name in Asian football. The country qualified for the AFC Asian Cup for the first time only in 1988 since the inception of the tournament in 1956. But, since 1992, Japan has won four continental titles (1992, 2000, 2004, 2011), a record for any Asian team. Whereas, India, off late, has been even struggling to qualify for the 24-nation AFC Asian Cup, a country that had once finished as runners-up at the Asian Cup in 1964.
According to Colaco, India’s current FIFA rankings of 138 is not a true reflection of its standard at the world level.
“FIFA rankings depend on the performance of the team. It depends on how many matches it has played and against whom it has played. At present, we have gone down because our performance has not been so good and we have not played that many matches. So, it actually not always represents the standard of the team. I'm not saying the team is better now or whatever. But we need to have a strategy to improve our rankings. That is to play more matches against a mixture of opponents, higher ranked and lower ranked, and win those matches, which will give us a chance to improve our rankings,” the veteran football administrator said.
