 Hello and welcome to a slightly serious, slightly somber episode of 420 Grams here on NewsClick.in. I'm joined in the studio by Ishfaq Ahmed and Vibhav Raghunandar and we're talking about India's exit last night at Sharjah from the AFC Asian Cup 2019. So close yet so far for India. Last minute penalty, I mean stoppage time penalty guys. Heartbreaking. Well, to be very honest, I didn't like the, they played the second half. A few, you know like Bahrain was playing really good. Kind of, you know, you were expecting something will happen, something will happen. They were, you know, like really brave, Gurpreet made couple of really good saves. But that penalty, you know, kind of when you defend so deep, you feel like that's coming. And that's what exactly happened, you know, like one ball, too many players inside the box and one missed challenge or mistake will you say, you know, like maybe tired legs also that time. And once your body is tired, you know, you don't think properly whether she should have gone out or wait for the ball. But yeah, I'm very disappointed with the, especially with the second up and even talking to some of the players. Everyone was, I feel like Bahrain well deserved. Do you agree with that assessment, a realistic sort of result given where Indian football stands right now? I don't know if it's where Indian football stands right now, but it's definitely right in the sense that it was coming. Yes, it's a little harsh to say that this is basically what we deserve because we deserve a little more than this. They had stood out for a large part of this, the UAE game and formed really well in the second half against Thailand. But yesterday you could see it coming, there were three, four minutes even before the goal, Gurpreet made one fantastic save, then it bounced off the post, then there was some last ditch pinball happening in the box. You could see a heartbreak on the horizon. You could see it coming. Going into the tournament when we did our previews, when we assessed the squad that Stephen Constantine had picked to go to the Asian Cup, we had hoped that we were wrong of course, but we did say that in the group, India are the weakest team. And as things have gone, although we got that massive win against Thailand, the 4-1 win in the opening game, which kind of I think elevated everyone's expectations. All of a sudden fans were thinking, man, there's something completely different going on. This is a new look in their team. For those who come in when these big tournaments, big games happen and they see a performance like the Thailand game, the enthusiasm levels go off the chart, but we did end up becoming the first team to exit the tournament. Is that fair, Ishfaq? Do you think that the Indian boys got what they deserved out of the tournament? Not really. I won't say that. They beat one of the very talented Thai team. I think they deserved more. At least they deserved the third spot. If you compare, like, immaturely, like a fan you behave like, we beat Thai, Thai beat Barian, but still we didn't qualify, but I think they played really good football first match, especially the second half as he was mentioning really, really good football. They pressed high and they looked dominant in that match. They played excellent 40 minutes against UAE, first half 40 minutes got couple of really great chances. Obviously expectation will be, you know, like, that's normal. That's very normal. But I think somewhere, you know, there was technical blunders also. I feel we should have not made any change. Gone with that, you know, like winning team, which most of the coaches do. I think they had enough rest and as we all know, the average age of the team right now is 25, 26. So, I don't think four years is more than enough. Let's get into tactical parts of the game and Stephen Constantine's decisions before the game as well as during the game in a minute. Before that, you might have noticed that Arjun Pandit is not here with us today because as soon as India exited from the Asian Cup, he exited the football scene. So, he's gone over to the dark side, which is Indian cricket. But of course, we managed to track him down. So, Pandit, do you generally agree with that assessment in your opinion of what Ishwak and Weber, when I think of how the sort of tournament progressed for India? Hey, Sadanth. Hey, Ishwak. Sorry, guys. Can't join you directly for the show because busy at work. Just got done with it, man. One reaction to the game. Disappointing, man. Honestly. Disappointing. Whoever you speak to, very, very disappointing reaction. You managed a single shot at Goliath. I mean, in the first two games, all that we had done and, you know, the way we had attacked UAE, the way we attacked Thailand, we saw nothing of it. Now, was it a game plan? Was it something that the boys were told that don't go ahead? Just make sure you're protecting gold. That should be your first move. We don't really know. But irrespective, it wasn't a pleasant sight to watch. And truth be told, it reminded me a little bit of the India of old, you know, when all 11 were behind the ball, attacking, defending, defending, defending. As soon as you get the ball, you've already lost composure, man, because you only set up to defend. So when you have the ball, you're like, hey, what do I do now? And there were so many moments of that. So I would say disappointing. Okay. So that's Pundit's take. And Pundit, stay with us here because we'll come back. We'll talk more about the tactical elements because the other bit of big news, of course, was immediately after the final whistle at the post-match press conference where Konstantin, without making any bones about it, said that, my time, I've gone through the cycle that I had to go through with India. My time here is done. I've left the players in a better position than when I came. And now it's time for me to move on, right? I don't think he's wrong. You know, like, if you remember when he started, we were like, I think 167 FIFA rankings. 173, maybe? 173, somewhere around that. They did well, they qualified. You know, it's a different thing if we talk about, like, a lot of fans are talking about the format of the tournament change, that's why. But come on, you have to still beat other teams. You know, it's not easy to beat. In football, it's not like to be easy to beat Nepal also. It's not Kirk at World Cup. It's like everyone is playing and everyone is improving. And, you know, like, we have, in fact, Indian national team have shown that once we beat Thailand also. And UAE coach mentioning, you know, like, who is one of the top coaches right now in Asia, he mentioned that India has a great team and they will definitely progress in next Asia Cup. So, which is a really, really good positive for, you know, like, take with them. I think if you talk about his contract about Constantine's contract, he had mentioned it. He wanted to stay till and I think he had given him till Asia Cup because he made them qualify. He was the boss and he deserved this chance. And we saw a different Indian team definitely. I personally feel the fitness was the biggest plus point which I have seen. Actually, I think you can circle this back also, like, in terms of talking about Constantine, where you can obviously, results are what essentially eventually matter in football. But you should not base a team's progression, a team's trajectory just based on results. You also have to see, are they playing better? Has the standard of football itself improved from when, say, Constantine took over to now? And that's the question to be asked. Like, in this Asian Cup, despite the fact that we may have finished bottom of the group, you saw some bits that were really good. You saw some kids who were really good and who will be Indian football's future. You saw some guys cement their places and make sure that they're going to be there for the long haul. So these are also, I think, topics to consider when you think about this failed Asian Cup campaign, if you want to put it like that. I guess there was some agreement on that. That, okay, four years he's been here, it's his second stint. Things on the ground are not changing as rapidly as it might appear from the outside in terms of how Indian teams can be sort of prepared to play, what sort of style we can play. I mean, there were also comments on shows that we've done in the past saying India should play Tikki Dhaka of football. You know, the, of course... It's not realistic to explain that. The unrealistic elements aside, credit has to be given to Stephen Constantine for many things and particularly, like we've talked about many times, for the chances that he's given to younger players to experience and become a part of the national setup. Do you agree, Ishwar? I think definitely he is one coach, you know, like I played under him. I think when he was 10 years back, a decade back, his philosophy is based on bringing up, you know, giving new players to chance and these young guys somehow they do very well under him. I do understand, you know, like fans' emotion and sentiments like we should play a more attractive football and all that. But sometimes he coaches also right, you need that kind of players, you know. We do have players, you know, like I feel like it for our nation, it should be a mix of position and the direct football. Direct football is not bad. It's like if playing, you know, we play direct football against Thai team. We press them high and immediately long ball a couple of times from even Gurpreet, which was very effective, we use the speed. We have players who love to run. So direct football may suit them. But at times we need to have that ball control which I know everybody is talking about and maybe it's the right time to bring some new coach who can bring that player. Start bringing that change into the system because apart from everything else, having the ball also ends up giving the team a bit of a breather. You're less intense when you're chasing, when you have possession. Which is what was missing yesterday, especially as the game went on. So let's talk a little bit more in detail about the tactical elements of the decisions that Konstantin made. In his final game. In his final game, yeah, whether it was the initial decision to play Raul in Borges instead of Anirudh Thapa, the change he made in terms of when Anas got injured, unfortunately, right at the beginning of the game, how he brought, he made a like for like change bringing Salam Ranjan in instead of perhaps reshuffling his back line a little bit. And then, of course, in at half time he pulled Ashikov, who was the brightest park along with Udanta, I think. And, of course, the defenders were doing really well, but in an attacking sense, Ashikov was the brightest park for us today. So to start this off, I want to go to Pandit before he runs away. You were in studio with Phil Brown, Eric and of course Renédy Singh and you were watching the game together. What did you guys make of these tactical decisions that the coach made in the game? Yeah, when we saw, we got to know about the team sheet before we were about to go on air and it came Raul in for Anirudh Thapa. I first up went and said that maybe this boy is unfit, a little bit of fatigue a setting because he's already played 180 minutes of football. But Renédy was saying, no brother, this is a tactical move because he sacrificed the creativity of Thapa for the long legs and the defensive capabilities of a Raul in Borges and that is exactly what he did. Even though in the pre-match press conference he said, I am going in there to win and to get the three points, the way his team played, the way his team was set up it did not appear like that. It seemed that he had set his team up to get that one point and make it into the knockout stage. Clearly it backfired because truth be told, Raul did not have a very good game. Raul, whenever he got the ball, he was miss spraying the pass wherever. You know, a lot of miss passes he was making and very unlike Raul in performance. So yeah, so disappointing to see India put in such a defensive performance especially after what they did versus UAE and Thailand. Okay, so that was the assessment from the star sports studios. We've also learned Ishfaq that the changes were not necessarily a result of injuries. So everyone was available for selection. These were tactical decisions. Why would you play Raul in Borges ahead of Anirudh Thapa? Well, I think that's the big question, you know, like everybody wants to know. But if you see the Bahrain coach also mentioning it when he saw number seven is not playing and he immediately got this sense like, okay, they want to go for a draw and he mentioned in his post-match conference, you know, like teams do get ready, they do do the post-mortem of the other teams and see where their strength lies. Thapa gives you more mobility in midfield and what that allows, why it was working, Pranay can stay a little bit behind and Thapa can just express his football and go here and there and then because Pranay and Thapa compliments each other and then because he recovers, he's fit player and he comes back and when you go with the two defensive midfielder, you know, like it then Pranay comes out of his comfort zone because when Borges is playing along with him, he's not that quick, Borges is kind of a game-maker but unfortunately he doesn't have that pace what he used to have and in this kind of tournament, Asia Cup where top teams are playing where Bahrain, they are like playing and all other top teams are playing, you need more fitter player, more faster player and we have seen all the top coaches have mentioned the speed of Indian team which was our plus point and which we unfortunately didn't have in second up when the tactical changes you were talking about there were no injuries. If somebody was telling me that coach I mentioned, Thapa had some back injuries. Constantine had come out and he said that but if that is the case, then why he came in second half? Why would you bring him on it? There is Balman, there is like apparently how to... And I think when he brought him on, he brought him on out of position also, he brought him on instead of Nazri. So that's again a question mark. Should we had one more winger player like Changte or Farooq or maybe people are, as René Desingh was saying, other day player like Sushi Raj who can beat players. So you know like it's of course had we qualified, we would have not been talking all this. It's normal. I think we would have been talking about it but maybe we would have been talking about it one game later. Could have been that but I agree. But you know like these are valid questions and they are like because I'm into coaching profession so I know like I felt like they are errors, especially one big error which I felt like was changing Ashik. Ashik only one guy who he looked very strong, like very fast and once you remove the Ashik then we don't have that outcome for those long balls because what JJ can do is like only the ball should be aimed towards him not away from him and it's very difficult when you are under such a tremendous pressure to aim the JJ and let it work. Playing as a target man for JJ in an Indian context is very different from playing a target man at the Asian level also. And also tactically I guess I want to bring in what we had said in our sort of earlier preview that having Subashish, Bose and Narayan Das in this squad only makes sense if they act as cover for each other and for the other defenders who are playing and I thought that given that Anas has had a tough time with injury there were question marks over him being match fit, a match sharp because he didn't play much absolutely. And then will he be able to suddenly handle the stress of these high pressure matches and keep it going for three matches back to back. So inevitably he broke down and what we had assumed was that Subashish will then move into a central role and Narayan because he also Narayan now has 30 odd caps for India he's not an absolute newcomer, he has some experience he's been with this squad for so long. That's why you have that benchmark. Yes, what is the point of having, like you guys said why replace a winger for a predominantly central midfielder? You have these guys who are there only to make a late impact in a game. So I guess that should be the end of that part because we can go on talking about this for hours and hours but it doesn't really fly, nobody wants to watch. So I do have to ask you... It's a positive critic, it's not like... Yeah of course it's not criticising for anybody can ask. So let's hope that perhaps some of these larger questions of team management perhaps will be looked at by whoever comes in next on which note I want to ask you what kind of a coach do you think now India should be looking for at least let's just put it in the short term between now and the end of the season. Well for me like we need a more manager than a coach right now and I think Savio is the technical director consulting with him also as well what kind of national philosophy we should develop and that is where we have to start from the grass root. We can't just bring somebody for the national team and not keeping this in view like the grass root what kind of players we are going to produce. I think we have to... this goes hand in hand I think somebody who has a better vision for nation and what kind of philosophy suits us I think that's the most important part and I personally believe that we need somebody who has like vast experience who has you know maybe somebody who have worked in Asia as well to understand the players mentality and players who are you know like what kind of Indian players are usually bit soft they don't go to speak to coach I think somebody who can understand Indian football somebody who can understand the nature of Indian players and give them more confidence by holding the ball keeping the ball position sometimes not like... Maybe expanding the scope of what we can do a little bit gradually sort of pushing the envelope Just teaching them game management Game management I totally agree No bro I mean so this will then go into a larger question of league Because you learn something from the league That's why there is some benefit in the national team I am saying the same thing I think that's what he is saying Philosophy overall philosophy should be you know like the national philosophy we have to define that for Like we aren't at a level where we can just bring in a coach who has certain philosophies and then expect our players to just go and fit his philosophy What we need is essentially a guy who can perhaps look at what's available and then... Fair enough so here's the next question and perhaps on this note we'll start to wind up this episode and Ishfaq you can choose not to comment on it because you are a coach you are an Indian coach so maybe there is a little bit of conflict for you but let me ask you do you think and let me bring Pandit in as well Do you guys think that it makes sense to at this stage give the reins of the national team to an Indian coach because as much as it's important to develop the team and get the results it's also important to develop the national philosophy and to develop Indian coaches so that in the long run coaches are also benefiting from the experience that the national team gives Absolutely I mean Problem with Indian sport as a whole is that you don't want to give your Indian managers or your Indian coaches a chance you always want to constantly bring in some foreign input you just assume that your players will get better if you bring in someone from outside So definitely I mean it doesn't matter I don't know maybe we'll do much better in terms of results maybe we won't but we should just be prepared to give it a shot Absolutely But what we were saying I think if we go to the if he goes statically for all the managers who have managed national team Rahim Sahib still has the best winning percentage you know like if we go like that but yes I totally agree with him Indian coaches they have to there should be a program for them also maybe right now you can bring a foreign coach all the age group team should have Indian coaches there are a lot of coaches who right now in coaching system who have represented country and played for long time Senior like season pros Absolutely and they should be given chance and we should have a program coaching programs also which coach education program we have but we should have selected coaches to go exchange for exchange programs so that they can get trained there and they bring those things rather than we bringing them here and our coach is not learning anything What do you make of that Pandit? Would you for example say okay we are in the middle of a season it's not perhaps the right time to be looking for replacement immediately maybe someone can come in during the summer when you know the European clubs etc etc do their hiring and firing and chopping and changing so would you give the reins to for example and say you know let him have 3 months with the team let him let's see where he goes My point is that the AIFF should quickly sit down on the table and finalize a coach as quickly as possible now the point is that you have 4 years to the next Asian Cup forget about the World Cup because we are not going to go very far in those qualifiers My point is we are going to be playing in the Asian Cup every year now or rather every edition sorry 24 team tournaments so we have a chance of making it so you have a 4 year period to go one better than what you have done in 2019 new coach will come in new coach will take time to assess the Indian conditions the Indian players our style of play and then once he picks his players on the basis of that he should choose his style of play he should choose his style of play a lot of people have been a little critical of Stephen Constantine but I kind of agree with his style of play his style of play is something that suited our boys capability we don't really have too many boys who are very good on the ball who have composure on the ball there is a Sunil Chhetri but beyond him at the international level how many of them really have composure on the ball so you have to set up a team where you sit back and you absorb absorb absorb and hit them on the counter so my advice to the AIFF would be just find a new coach as quickly as possible find a good coach as quickly as possible and give him the reins where at least 3.5 years before the Asian Cup I'm glad you heard it as Venky and not Wenger because the guys were like we don't mind bringing Asin Wenger in to have a go with India and see where he takes us but guys thanks very much I think that's a pretty good sort of assessment of how India's tournament has been if any last words from you guys if there is anything that you want to add to that just maybe you spark a line on what the boys you spoke to sort of told you after the match well they are a bit disappointed then they know that they didn't play to their potential you know like but you were expecting you know I remember you talking in pre-match show also you know like the scenario of matches you know pose in such a way where India can go through with the draw also and it automatically by nature of the game like they will try to defend deep but sometimes you know like that's the downfall also sometimes and we have exactly seen what that pressure did to Indian team and they somehow conceded that penalty kick in 91st minute which was kind of heartbreaking actually you know like when you work hard 90 minutes you know like up and down and then give a and especially for Pranay to give away that penalty after he played a real captain's innings as it were to use a trickering term because he had a fantastic game I mean covered superbly for the back line so many interceptions passing all right intelligently so yeah so disappointing disappointing overall result for India the team will be coming back but but the positive is that the sort of support that this Indian team had from the football community in India has been a massive step up from anything it's been in the past so I guess the last word from our studio is I hope that the fans will continue to be engaged with us as a part of this story and with Indian football in general keep tuning in keep coming back we'll see you soon