Congratulations to FC Goa for their victory against Jamshedpur FC on 11th of this month at Fatorda Ground, Goa. My full admiration to Lanzarote for scoring both the goals of FC Goa but the second one was just a class by itself and his ingenuity. However, discipline wise he proved to be very bad having no control over his temperament. Having played in the West in more grueling competitions he should have taken this tournament in good strides. Losing his temper for any trivial incident that is very common in the game like soccer is his weakness which he should correct or his coach should reprimand him as was done to the great midfielder of Brazil of 1970 World Cup winning team, by his Team Manager.
Arguing with the referees especially by the Western players as it is seen in this tournament, proved how low they consider the Indian umpires though the Indians are lacking in wielding strong control over these matches. Psychologically the Western players are having very low opinion of the Indian Referees and since this is the case the organizers must introduce Western Referees to supervise the matches of this tournament. During Portuguese rule in Goa, the Pakle footballers used to defy the decision of Goan Referees and because of this many of the encounters had to be abandoned. Those Portuguese Pakles had very low opinion of Goan Referees because many times these Goan Referees were guilty of wielding strong control of the situation. By the way, the decision of awarding penalty to Goa against Jamshedpur FC was the right decision because infringement in the box is penalty. The equalizer of Jamshedpur FC was absolutely the mistake of Goa’s defense that left the 3 opponents totally unmarked to score the equalizer.
The greatest weakness of FC Goa is their defense where every defender acts as dribbler in his own goalmouth. Such tactics are risky. The greatest Brazilian Coach, Tele Santana in 1982 World Cup in Spain, made the biggest mistake by not prohibiting his defenders from dribbling the ball in their own citadel instead of releasing the ball first time to safer area, against Paolo Rossi’s Italy and thus exiting miserably from that World Cup. In fact that year’s Brazilian squad consisted of the mighty players as never seen before neither in Brazil nor in the World elsewhere. Even the 1970 Brazilian World Cup winning squad and keeping the Jules Rimet Trophy for good for Brazil by winning it for the third time, was not as powerful as this 1982 squad.
It was known in Brazil that year in 1982 that Brazil squad was certain to win that year’s final and for this reason many well wishers of this squad in Brazil while leaving for Spain to participate in the 1982 tournament hailed them as World Champions in advance only. But ultimately something different happened in Spain when Brazil were defeated by Poulo Rossi’s Italy when in fact Paolo Rossi scored the magnificent hat-trick that finally sent Brazil squad straight to home empty handed. Some of the magnificent players of that Brazilian 1982 squad were Zico – Socrates – Eder – Serginho – Junior. I am yet to see again another Eder. That squad was beautifully groomed into a perfect homogeneous entity by their great Coach Tele Santana whose knowledge of this game was extremely high. Besides he was the very good reader of this game.
The management of FC Goa by using Goa’s name, fame and image should rise to the occasion and hire at least a top first division German or English or South American Coach by keeping at his disposal all the requirements needed to produce the first class outfit where more Goans are made to fit in the team. This year FC Goa lacks more Goan players when Goan players should have been given greater representation taken into consideration the name of the team. The management of FC Goa should not think they got the name on Rent. Every second player of FC Goa is a non Goan, why is this and who is responsible for this?
The huge number of vociferous Goan spectators supporting and applauding the FC Goa has anytime realized the injustice done to the indigenous Goan players by the commercial oriented management of FC Goa? The Goan spectators should not give an impression that they are also hired by the FC Goa management. Are there no footballers in Goa to represent FC Goa? Is Goa otherwise so rich in producing soccer players suddenly gone bankrupt in this field? And by the way, what efforts the non-Goan owners and management of FC Goa made to produce indigenous players to represent FC Goa? I must caution the current non-Goan owners of FC Goa that the name of Goa is not for sale nor for rent and they should not misuse the very good image of Goa in soccer to gain them commercially and politically.
Goa may be small in length and breadth but surely very wide and big in the field of soccer producing finest players of which type India is yet to produce. The achievement of Goa in this field are worth admiring. The first match played in Goa under flood lights was somewhere in 1956 which was very early. The Arpora School of St.Joseph’s High School, had the unique distinction to play against the visiting German soccer team in 1946 proving that even the standard of school soccer teams in Goa was high. Some of the Goan players after developing in Goa went to Bombay and Africa and earned name and fame for them as best players. The football is running along with the blood in the veins of Goans and as per Goan tradition the first toy given to the new born Goan child is a small ball.
From the events taking place it looks to me the owners of FC Goa, the owner of Casino is not much interested in developing Goan soccer, I have a feeling his interest in taking over FC Goa was only to promote his business by gaining the goodwill of Goans and besides the money collected from the sinful Casino will never help Goa to develop Goan soccer. Sin and development will never go together specially in the land that is dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier calling it “Saibachem Goem”. It is an insult to St. Francis Saib to use money collected from his land thru sinful methods to utilize it for the spread of soccer. As a priest, I am sure St. Francis Xavier must have played soccer as a seminarian and as such he must surely have love for this sport but he will never bless the spread of this game financed thru sinful money.
However, inspite of what I said above, money should not be a hindrance in India to develop soccer by hiring top players and coaches from all around the globe preferably from UK or Germany or Argentina. To do this, the organizers and promoters of current soccer teams must be ready to spend money if they are really interested in developing our football in the country.
A.Veronica Fernandes.