The ongoing U-17 world cup may give us a glimpse of some Leo Messis in the making. May be in Jadon Sancho of England. The India-USA match has thrown open the highest level of fitness the youths have drilled into their system. How often renowned coaches of the yesteryears like P.K. Banerjee had moaned that skills of Krishanu Dey or Surajit Sengupta could never make any impact in front of robust Iranian or Saudi footballers. Physique, or the lack of it and fitness had been the biggest bane of Indian soccer. To make matters worse, there was never any system into place to make the footballers physically fit.
The column has two distinct features. One a sad retrospection, the other a bright projection.
Looking back I was fortunate to have played under coach Subhash Bhowmick and back in 1983 played a few friendly matches against the Indian sub-junior team, coached by Syed Naeemuddin. For both teams, fitness meant running around the park for 30-40 minutes. Then about 20 sprints in a distance of 30 metres. How incorrect. Going by the strength and conditioning guideline, the sprints should have been done before. The long run would follow.
We did static squats like a chair hold during the stretches. It’s a glaring error. Squat is part of strengthening and must be done separately, not during stretches. Apart from push ups and abdominal exercises we never did any strength training in those days. During that era glaring errors galore pertaining to fitness.
Training, match play and recovery are three separate entities. Training is for fitness coach, match play for coach and recovery for physio-trainer-masseur. Coach Naeemuddin would call shots for everything as he had no technical hand to fall for. The scenario for the seniors was as gloomy as the juniors. At the Eden Gardens, I watched the hugely rated Ciric Milovan of Yugoslavia rolling into a trainer, physio and nutritionist during 1980’s.
From the era of typewriters we are surely into smart phones in terms of vision for fitness now. Our grass root, at least at the highest level is getting quality support in terms of fitness, mental health and nutrition. Under a foreign trainer, the current U-17 team trained both in India and abroad. A GPS is put into the shoe to gauge the distance they run during practice.
The Suunto heart rate monitor would check the peak heat rate. Cardio-endurance training to sustain 90 minutes is now more in the mould of Barcelona academy boys. Warm-up squats no longer exists.
Because of the genes we inherit, we can never be built like the powerful Europeans or Americans. Save for the Northeast region, the boys there have great lean muscle and strong lower extremity. However, their height would seldom be an advantage. In fact, Indian football will never have an army of eleven six feet robust boys. We have to make up for the lack of height and body weight with great strength training expertise like the Japanese and Koreans do.
Significantly modern coaches are pushing the young footballers to gym. The scientific approach has filtered down to the grass root level. De Matos and Colin Tohl, the youth coaches are following a system and getting professional help.
The advent of the ISL does have an impact on channelling money on nurseries. Reliance has a fantastic nursery in Mumbai where Jose Barretto is working as chief coach. The boys are educated to know about their body and shape it in a way to take on the best in the world.
There are so many silver linings in modern times. But one dark cloud is the total failure on the part of I-League teams in not caring for nursery development. Remember, still 80% of Indian football talent come through I-League teams. I feel sad to see Mohun Bagan and East Bengal U-19 teams not having a fitness coach. The thinly built skillful boys do not have access to classy gyms. They lack adequate nutrition. Hope this U-17 world cup will make these clubs wake up and finally make an academy that is worth to be called one.
(Chinmoy Roy is a veteran fitness expert & trainer and has been associated in different capacities with Indian and Bengal cricket for decades)