 Salam, you're watching a very, very special episode of 420 Grams if you're tuning in today because after three years of being head coach of India's national men's senior football team, we're finally getting the opportunity to sit down one-on-one and have a conversation, an in-depth conversation with Ego Stimach. The man of course needs no introduction. Those of us who are familiar and have been fans of following Indian football with any sort of interest over the past few years will be well sort of versed with Mr. Stimach's history, both as a player as well as a manager. And of course, we've seen him run the national team over the course of the last three years. So lots to talk about. We've had a few episodes on 420 Grams where we've talked about Ego's work with the national team, successes, failures and all of those things. Today we have the man himself to give his perspective and give us a chance to sort of look inside his brain and pick at his brain and understand what he's looking at, not just today but also in the next few years as far as Indian football are concerned. Yesterday, of course, as you might have read in the newspapers, Ego met with the newly appointed committee of administrators to discuss the situation with regards to his contract and his extension. So you're welcome first of all to 420 Grams. Thanks very much for taking the time. I know you're with your family and all that. So it's always good to have you when you can make the time. How did that meeting go with the COA yesterday? Do we have some good news to give Indian football fans? As I tweeted yesterday, the meeting was fruitful. It was very open. Obviously, I didn't know but they had prior to our meeting, they had a meeting with the players, our senator players and obviously the feedback from them about the work we are providing was quite good. So the COA members were really happy about what national team has done in the past three years and what's been achieved, which I don't consider great achievement as I told you. Maybe yes, in regards to the circumstances we were finding ourselves in with pandemic and not being able to have camps as planned and spend enough time on the training, which everybody expected us to qualify. That's for sure. And in regards to that, there is no great achievement yet to talk about. But what we can speak about is the way we performed, the way the boys played, they behaved and the different kind of football we presented in Kolkata in the three qualifying matches, which everybody was happy about to see finally. And that's what I say always. You give me enough time to work with these boys, I will provide. If you don't give me enough time, do not affect anything and please do not criticize that because that for football to work, for the players to perform, we need time to work together. We need time to spend together. We need time to adjust things in a proper way. And that's the only way football works. Fair enough. So we're then just proceeding further with that. Are they going to give you the kind of time you need to make India into the kind of project? Because three years ago when we met you at your first press conference, we talked about like aims and what it would require to eventually get India to let's say a World Cup. That takes a lot of time and effort. Yeah. You know, as I joined the AIFF and I was contracted first time, I was never putting pressure on anyone about how long my contract is going to be because I was very confident that I'm going to provide and fulfill the goals. That's one point. That's what I do now again because the terms of my contract are not the main priority at this stage. I will negotiate the terms either with the CEOA or with the future president or future technical committee. That's not an issue for me. As I said, for me to stay there, the most important thing is are you going to provide me enough time to work with the players? Because if there is not such option, then I need to think twice about staying or looking for another job. And I have, as I said, I do have offers. I do not negotiate with anyone at the moment because I'm fully loyal to the contract I have. I will be patient. I will wait. If CEOA members are going to discuss and provide an offer, we're going to sit down and talk and we're going to find an agreement. That's for sure. I told them, do not waste your time on me and my contract at the moment because you have priorities. There are certain which they need to fulfill about the constitution and making sure election is done on time. So that's the priority for them at the moment. My contract can wait and that's not an issue, but other things are the issue and that's definitely the truth. Fair enough. So by that, do you mean to say that we have to wait till the constitution and all of that is resolved and then elections will happen or do you see things happening before that? Because we have less than a year to move. I'm not sure in what stage they are at the moment with the constitution and election procedure and all that. What I certainly know that they were doing and giving some other contracts to the AIFF. So they have the possibility, if they think that's right, if they don't think it's right to go into giving long-term contact to the coach, then be it. I don't have problem with that. I said to them, you have my full support in what you do. You don't need to be worried about me running away somewhere. It will not happen. If you come forward with some offer or some contract, we're going to discuss, but please make sure that we don't get any kind of ban from FIFA or not fulfilling the expected time frames which were given to us. It's very simple. Alright, so I guess then we'll have to wait and watch and perhaps the ball is now in the COA's court in terms of that contact extension. As you said, the interesting thing and as Jedeep was pointing out on the show yesterday that we did as well was that in the AIFF, it seems that contracts of other courses and etc are being extended. So we are really unsure at this point why the delay, especially given the limited amount of preparation time that we have for the tournament that's coming up, the major tournament that we've all been focused on for the last three years. So not really sure what's going on, but I guess not too much you can do about that either at this point, Igor. How are preparations proceeding? What's your plan for the next few months irrespective of what happens with the contract? At the moment, I'm working with the rubbish on finding the opponents for a September camp, but my hands as you said are quite tight there because I don't know if we're going to get approval for a longer camp. If we don't get approval for a longer camp, then I will not accept playing against stronger opponents because I don't have enough time to prepare well. I would rather choose whatever is available there from weaker sides, lower ranked sides, so we make sure to make our life easier. As simple as that, as much time as we get as a national team to work to prepare ourselves, we can accept any opponent whatsoever. We don't have fear facing anyone, but it depends on the time we are given to prepare ourselves, that's for sure. So we are blocked at the moment. We do know what we have to do. As you probably aware, we have two camps, not four like before because there is a World Cup coming in November and December for that reason, there will be no October and November FIFA windows at this stage, only September FIFA window for two friendly international games, and in 2023 March window for two international friendly games also, and that's all we got. After that, we need to see how we can organize ourselves because many things are there to be discussed with other stakeholders because we have Santosh trophy, we have Supper Cup, which will be played until very late in May. We have ISL playoffs semifinals and finals, you know that end of February ISL regular season will finish, which will be followed by semifinals and final game, which means that once again, we're going to have four clubs involved until mid-March in the competition and seven clubs will be waiting and training and waiting the Supper Cup to start. So all these things in regards to the national team candidates need to be discussed, need to be measured, need to be adjusted to what national team needs because that's a long process of planning, making sure that things are precise, that things are certain, that we don't come to next year, January or February without knowing who we play, where we're going to stay, which hotels we are going to choose, you know, this is not kind of a kind of approach we need if we want to do well at the Asian Cup. Have you sort of made any kind of proposal to them in terms of what you want exactly, like how many days, when etc etc? Yeah, always respectful to what has been planned, you know, because ISL is there and finally the season will go on for eight months as we were always trying to do. It didn't start it already because obviously pandemic stopped all our plans. The ISL was supposed to start in such manner in a reconstructed way two years ago, but all the plans were destroyed. National team was supposed to have two months camped in Turkey and Austria two years ago, but that was destroyed. I arranged 10 friendly games during these two months of preparation. Everything was wiped out, how I say, and we were left there without having possibility playing football in India, without having possibility preparing ourselves for the friendly game. We were playing abroad for two years in front of our host supporters with referees who are always pushing a little bit on the home side and all these things can affect whatever you're trying to do and obviously the worst thing and the worst point I was having fear of was not getting enough time. When I just remember last time when we went to Bahrain, I had a half a team coming to Bahrain one and a half hour prior to the game, to the kickoff. Is that the proper preparation for the game? It's not. We cannot expect the team to do well and I feel sorry for the players. I never feel sorry for myself and I don't mind facing criticism and being pointed finger at me for this reason or that reason, but if the coach is not given time, proper time to prepare the team, to do man-to-man management job, to explain things and wrong doings to the players, to work on the pitch with them on the final third combinations and options on both possession, on accuracy in passing, on mid-press, high-press. How are you going to expect things to happen and why this happened now? It's not a miracle. It's because we worked hard for two months. It's because we trained every day twice because we were doing man-to-man management. We were showing the players what has been wrong, what needs to be done, how needs to be changed. It's a huge process. Football is a huge process. People can see only what's happening on the pitch during 90 minutes, but what's happening prior to that is the most important thing. 90 minutes on the pitch is just, I would say, a full amount of the energy and the time spent on the training pitch in three days, five days, seven days or two months prior to that. As much time as you are given and possibility to work with your players, you have better possibility to perform good. Absolutely. You're right. I think back when, and I think you must be well aware of this, back in 2011 when India qualified through the, at that time, there was a backdoor to qualification through the Challenge Cup. We made it to, after 30 years almost, we made it to the Asian Cup. So at that time, Bob Houghton was the coach and so for 11 months, he had the whole team together and that's why I think despite the results not going well, at least the team was able to achieve a standard of football that was beyond what we had seen earlier. Unfortunately for you, that is not a possibility. Yeah, I know and I understand and the football, no coach can guarantee results but I speak about performances. So we need to make sure now we get enough time to perform well and to make Indian football followers proud about our performance. I'm not saying we're going to achieve great results because results are in God's hands. You can be much better side during 90 minutes and lose the game and lose it heavily. So the result is in God's hands but performance is what makes people happy. The way you play, the way you approach the football game and I'm the coach who is always trying to convince our players that they need to go out to express themselves without fear, without fear of making mistakes because mistakes will happen always. But if that mistakes affects you in a way that you cannot perform at your best later on, that's the problem we face. So now that you brought us into this part of the conversation quite naturally, what I was thinking of as a structure for the rest of this conversation is to look back at the first press conference that you had together with Isaac Doru at that time who was the technical director and the kind of ideas that you had wanted to achieve with the team so far. So before we go to the broader things specifically with regards to the senior national team, the things that you had mentioned at that time and we can maybe go by them one by one and you can tell us. I remember very well everything. Right of course. So first up as an issue or first a good part, I think we all noticed that Anwar Ali was even then a bright spark coming through the system and you spotted that as well and it's good to see him now finally back in the senior team setup and bright future hopefully because that's a key position we'll get to that. But first up was the lack of concentration that you saw in the previous games and the lack of tactical knowledge as well as movement. So how have we progressed on those fronts and where are we going? We went far away. We went far away with tactical knowledge, with composure, with keeping tight lines, with defending together and attacking together in regards to the previous football where we had only counter-attacking football, trying to defend in numbers obviously but making sure that no more than four players are going forward than six players sitting back. That was quite obvious to me after doing a deeper analysis on what has been done. And we were doing well there. You cannot say anything about that because three performances at the Asian Cup with Mr Konstantin were very good for India apart from Bahraini game which I would approach totally differently because that's a very less chance in such a way playing a football game that you can survive throughout 90 or 95 minutes. But the rest of it was really really good apart from conceding to silly goals from straight passes behind the back four against Emirates after missing a couple of good chances. So I wouldn't go much into that. I would concentrate on what we've been doing in the past three years and that's exactly what I said and I was obviously spot on in what we can achieve, how we can change and I said on my first press conference that's a long process and that process we're going to go through suffering and we need to be patient. What I expect everyone to understand what national team needs, I expect all the stakeholders to put national team needs as a priority there if we want to promote football in India in a proper way because I explain to everyone then that no club playing in Asian Cup Champion League will promote football in India in a way that national team can do and that's the main reason why national team needs to be supported much much stronger by all the stakeholders in India. Yeah and why it was so bizarre to see what was happening with that ticketing story in Calcutta but how is the league fitting into this growth of tactical knowledge and movement? Igor, an important part of what you had spoken about and Isaac as well was to kind of start to build a nationwide philosophy, get people on the same page and have better communication. Of course it's been hit by the pandemic but how's it going? It's going really good because ISL is helping a lot. ISL has brought many, many more good things to Indian football than any bad things whatsoever. It's helping a lot because all the foreign coaches who were there were helping the national team to rise with their work although they didn't have time like me, they didn't have time. If you consider that only in last two seasons, foreign coaches who were employed by ISL clubs had four months of pre-season to work with the players and prepare the teams for the bubble situation where players will just play games without possibility of spending too much time on the training pitch. That's not kind of a work which can help in a great manner to the national team but it helped because all these communications we had and I had fantastic, fantastic relationships with Manolo Marquez which I appreciate with the open call there, with Ivan Vukumanovich throughout last year, all the time, with Sergio Pera, with Juan Pera, with all the guys. I can go individually and mention all of them to you but we were in continuous touch about the players, about the positions, discussing everything and keeping in touch and making sure that we benefit all from what we do because we need to behave like one body and we are one family. If we don't stick together, if we don't work together Indian football will not go forward and obviously I depend on their work, my work depends on their work because they have possibility to spend more time with the players than I do and then I need to find out much more about the players which they have under their control because they will know much more about them. I can see them for seven days when we have the camp and they spend all the time with these coaches for their information on the players it's very valuable to me. So it's good to hear that of course you have that communication and that access to information. Still of course I guess gaps are there that's why and because those gaps are there is why you need the camps to be longer. What do you see as steps towards kind of reducing those gaps? Obviously more games but let's hear you say it I guess. Everyone knows that you know and it's going to happen now so we shouldn't be complaining about that but this season should bring more than 40 games to the players which is fantastic. Football will be promoted in a much better way there will be more competitions which is great for all the players. They will be under the process of the training and they will keep fitness level condition for eight months which is great but it's also dangerous because they are not used to it. So now we need to see what effects this is going to have on the players muscle strength on their weak points you know. So how are they going to handle that and such a long season you know. But obviously there will be much more time between the games for them to recover which is really good. There will be no need for any coach whatsoever to push any player with minor injuries to go on the pitch and perform which we had many problems with in the past. If I speak with the national team I'm kind of a coach who never allows a player with a minor injury to go and play because I consider that such player cannot help the team. He's hurting himself first of all. He's putting himself in a grave danger and I consider that even a less good player can help much more the team if he's 100% prolific then the one with the minor injury going out and risking everything for the team you know. So these are the things which are now much much better and for that reason we should be optimistic about the future but also we need to take good care about the players. That's why I'm insisting now on all coaches prior to start the preseason to do an esokinetic test on each player because there is a huge problem in a muscle strength disproportion in India with the players. They didn't go through great development programs and the muscle strength between hamstrings and quadriceps are such a huge problem and issue for these boys and they are getting injured after making few longer sprints which is obvious to many ASL injuries also in our players and we have situation where some talented boys are just disappearing from the football pitch after playing one season in ISL. We shouldn't allow that because if anyone is investing 8 to 10 years in the development of one player then these things needs to be sorted. We cannot risk putting these players in such great danger without making good and proper workout on the muscle strength especially on the hamstring side. You had also mentioned that defending is what leads to good results. Now okay we can talk about style of play later but yeah I think and all I guess anyone who's played on that side of the pitch would have that approach and I have to say I 100% concur with you on that. So in the context of our defensive lineup we talked a little bit about how they are organized and how they are doing much better at some of those aspects of things but competition for places over the past three years how has that progressed? You see when we entered the process we were quite sure that the biggest difficulty we're going to face into changing the mindset of the players because the team which was there which we took over had certain way of play and they had habits to play in such system you know and especially if these players are much experienced in certain age if they are 26 and more then it's difficult to change them. Never mind how much time you get to work with them you know it's it's difficult if someone puts them under pressure they will not even try to pass the ball from the back you know so we were quite sure and aware of that problem we're going to face and that's why the only exit out of such a problem was opening door wide open to the youngsters you see and giving the chance anytime we get to these youngsters to go out on the pitch and perform to gain the experience and mature quicker that was really important to us and that was the suffering part we went through you know because when you go with the youngsters in numbers trying to give them the chance to mature quicker you are facing a grave danger in losing many games which are there to lose because they are friendly games especially if they are not official friendly games then that's a great opportunity to do such a thing you know because you are not losing the points on rankings or you are not risking anything but being criticized from the public who are followers you know so that's not damage I would say so we survived that process and we got to a point now when we where we have 38 players which are there and great great mixture of youngsters four to five senator players and mid-age players who are also our strength and three years of work has been finished it's been done in great style I'm proud of the boys how they handled everything with so many problems in the past two years especially and we are on a good path to do great things I'm telling you because if you take out Sunil Gurprit and Sandesh out of this team then average age of our first 11 is 22 and we are the youngest team in Asia and having in mind that our qualifiers for the World Cup are coming in a couple of years then it's quite obvious that these players will be much more mature that they're gonna have much more experience and with the senators who will still be there to help them rise we can expect great things and not to forget that reducing number of foreign players in ISL helped us a lot that's what the thing we insisted from the very beginning it took us a couple of years to come to three plus one rule but you could see how much positive effect that had on Indian players going through showing up and proving themselves and that's one thing we need to keep following and going on that's why I'm now pointing out importance of thinking not requesting let's start thinking about making eye league only Indian league without foreign players I have nothing against foreign players because they bring they bring many good things to Indian football Indian players are rising up next to them learning from them especially if you choose character boys boys who come to India and they are ready to fight for the team and for the shirt not those who are just walking by you know and money pickers this we had great foreign players last season in the league who were making huge difference on the pitch for some teams and that's great you know so I appreciate their effort they work their help to Indian football but eye league there is no point of having foreign players there whoever tells me that there is a good point and reason to keep foreign players in eye league I'll sit down with him discuss I will give 100 arguments against it you know yeah no fair enough I guess you had mentioned this I think in one of your post match or press conferences as well at the AFC qualifiers and we were discussing it a bit and there were of course those in favour and those not Sudeva and Indian Arrows two clubs already exist that largely that that played with only Indian players in the eye league and I think it is potentially a model that can be followed along also with perhaps some kind of age age regulations it's not really potentially I wouldn't use that that that you know it's necessary it's necessary for Indian national team to become strong in the near future because you ask me many times not you personally but your colleagues where you're going to find so much but I'm asking you where I'm going to find new Sahal new Tapa new Brandon Fernandez where I'm going to find new Anwar Ali new Jixon new new Suresh or I don't know who if we keep all this most important place play places in the team for foreign players and we don't have possibility of involving POI players international team where we're going to find them if we are not opening the door for these boys to to perform on these positions that's impossible it's it simple two plus two you know so we need to be very wise we need to use logic here are we there to help the national team become great or not but you yourself have hardly picked any eye league players for the national team setup you know even though there are more at least in these key positions you're talking about the spine of the team for sure so what happens is that a player comes in and maybe gets a chance to play in the eye league in one of these positions does well is picked up by an ISL club and then goes and sits on the bench you don't see or hear a firm again in many situations yeah yeah it's been proven it proven in different occasions that players the best players from my league coming to ISL they cannot get place in the team and play and foreign coaches are there who I discuss all these things you know so it's obviously that there is a there is a gap a decent gap between the quality of football and individual class between ISL and eye league and at the moment I'm not saying that will not change but it can change with lots of effort lots of work many more hours spent on the training pitch but as per now I see eye league as a great filter and the way for a young players to mature there to be recognized but by ISL coaches and scouts they've been signed to ISL the fees paid to eye league clubs which is good compensation for the work they've been done and that's one of the main reasons why they need to look at that option because producing player is the most important part for Indian future producing players and eye league should should consider in a great manner that there is option for them for a great cash flow from ISL to eye league producing players and transferring them to ISL for compensation substantial fees now happening last two years this is kind of a way how you can support your club and finance your club yeah the existence over transfer market does add a new element are we not it's not happening before yeah it's not at all yeah because of players clubs always be offering players only single year contracts and and sort of it was very much a very much a now they need to make longer plans with the players when they recognize the talent and they they they invest work time work within couple of years and they sell in good through to ISL they can earn substantial amounts of money yeah fair enough I think one of the final points Igor I think you've covered many of the things working with clubs communication all of those aspects even the league structure we've talked about broadly what you want from it what should happen with the eye league and all of that a promotion and delegation of course we've spoken about these things very often so no point getting that's all involved in the in the road but you know and that's been that's been defined and it will happen soon what what we are hoping that soon in a few years time or sooner better than later we're gonna have ISL league of 20 clubs an eye league 20 clubs you know but good clubs good clubs stable clubs not clubs with financial problems without facilities without infrastructure and without support from stakeholders you know so it's really important yeah and it definitely it'll be interesting to watch how that unfolds because at the moment it's simply a question of spending the money having the club and then playing playing in that competition but it needs to be yeah it needs to be a much much more comprehensive approach I guess so so finally how how has progress been in terms of synchronicity I think is the word that Isaac used in that press conference to talk about your philosophy of getting everyone on the same page how is that project proceeding with the age group teams and women's teams as well are we coming up with a comprehensive kind of identity because like you guys both mentioned it's not a static thing it's not like you can approach every game or every situation with the same mindset no obviously no you know you mentioned earlier that the most important thing in a football game is making sure you don't concede goals but there are different in various ways how you approach that point you can defend your goal very high and away from your goalkeeper you can defend it in the middle of the pitch or you can sit back very deep so these are the things which define the performance at the end of the day you know from Johan Cruyff era you had you had one wonderful thought about defending your goal in front of the opposition ball and that was the high press immediate reaction and transition after losing the ball high press winning the ball back again and making sure that you keep the ball as long as possible because while the ball is in your legs opponent doesn't have a chance to score and that's Barcelona philosophy you know then you have the teams who are playing only straight football after winning the ball striking fast quickest as possible like Liverpool does most of the times but this high press involves all the pitch from each position you know so and then you have also the clubs like Real Madrid who can do anything with the quality of the players they have with the with the experience they have they can they are not using high press because obviously age of that team is not allowing them to to go and risk so much because they would run out of energy very soon with the high press but they know how to defend with their experience they know how to close the gaps and they have so much quality from the middle of the of the pitch to strike with these youngsters they have on the on the white positions at the moment with Modric with Benzema with Tony Krozka Zemiro all these guys they can hurt you badly and that what they've shown to everyone to Man City to Liverpool to to everyone there you know so it's about philosophy our philosophy is playing without fear and performing well playing without fear because I would I could feel earlier that there was a fear involved there you know let's not suffer badly today playing against better and ranked teams and you could see that and it was exposed in in stats we were getting after the games you know you know ball possession huge difference in regards to the opponents shots on target huge difference we were barely passing the half line couple of times during the 90 minutes so we wanted to change that to change that you need to change the mindset mindset to change that you need to spend a lot of time with the players on the pitch you need to speak them a lot you need to show them the clips go through the mistakes make sure that they learn how to prevent such mistakes not there at the spot where mistake was done far far earlier because when goalkeeper receives the goal it's never his fault prior to that five mistakes were made at least on the whole pitch prior to that you know sometimes people people say and rubbish goalkeepers for receiving silly goals but what happened prior to that how the opposition team get in front of the goalkeeper can you tell me who made those mistakes you know so it's about whole team copac test tight lines reactions making sure that whoever does wrong you make it right for him being ready to sacrifice yourself that's the point where we came very far with our players with the national team because everyone there is involved in both transitioning attacking and defending we are keeping much better the the tightness between the lines at the moment our reaction after losing the ball is much much better we are not going through the game unconsciously anymore we are well aware and we are conscious about all what's going on in the pitch now and that's what I'm proud of and the under 19s and the under 16s are they even further down in regards to that I am as a national team coach and under 23 coach I'm responsible for for these teams and obviously taking care of indian arrows program and and selection there not involved in scouting players there obviously because I don't have so much time for that but when he was heavily involved with the senior national team for two years and we made sure that program from the national team was passed to indian arrows to to follow these boys to make sure they are well prepared for isle games later on once they go through the indian arrows project and that's been very fruitful as you can see so I always say whenever you criticize people from AIFF if you have good reasons make sure you give compliments for good things which happen there you know because indian arrows is a great project needs to keep going on we all need to make sure that projects are wise and in the near future that project should join myself let's not forget about that you know it will give us a great possibility of keeping these players say hello to everyone and say goodbye now bye bye and you know and these are the things I'm trying to be aware of and make sure to help everyone there involved this is a future player you see probably for Croatia yeah he was with Mbappé and Luca Modric there when Croatia faced France on the pitch he was with the players there yeah yeah he's got the right pedigree for it I guess right these guys are special these guys are special absolutely yeah I mean I'm like us who tried to play on the left side only because they were not enough players so there's a better chance to get picked yeah so no so fair enough with the under 16s under 19s that process continuing arrows and like you rightly said I mean arrows is a project that we've appreciated and complimented right from its creation back in I think 2009 probably was when in different forms it started to have a team in that could help India prepare for the Asian Cup in a different way and then it was carried on as a long-term project and it's a great way for the World Cup under 17 also you know as well which was great to to have in India and now the girls under 17 which will which will go on it's another great great achievement for AIFF you know I just hope and we should check how much we can do about this this Asian Cup now and the possibility of joining the host host to host this this Cup if if there is a willingness by our side to participate if there is a possibility from the government part to help us organize that because that would give us enormous chance of qualifying you need to see that there is a possibility also because China was supposed to be the host and once they they they decided to get out of the picture now it's it's a good possibility of talking to to AFC to divide the host sports to different countries not only to one because it's difficult that one country can prepare itself in 12 months time or 8 months time to host so many nations and make sure that everyone is organized well but if you involve six countries to host each each one of the groups that would be fantastic tournament that would be amazing tournament never never seen before in Asia you know they they need to open the picture and look wider side of it and benefits for football yeah and and also considering that we are still you know the pandemic is still still in some ways continues and there will be outbreaks perhaps different kinds of things going on we see a number of players for example I pulled out of Wimbledon this time with COVID-19 also so so it also we should we should we should forget about that in a way that the life should stop because of it because I tell you in Europe no one cares anymore no one cares anymore you know life goes on we are trying to take care about elderly ones and the the everyone with the chronicle problems but young people and people with a good health they don't face any issues with such a problems there is a vaccine which is obligatory and that's it life needs to go on we need to live our lives we need to enjoy football and other things in life and live normally so if someone gets positive he will be quarantined and that's it there is a test possible to do and get the results in five minutes so there is no issues whatsoever yeah we are definitely much better positioned to deal with these with this now and that's an interesting suggestion hopefully I think the AFC have extended the deadline for those bids now by another couple of weeks so hopefully somebody will jump in with that suggestion because you're right hosting a 24 team competition in a few months not too many people in a position in Asia to be able to do very limited I would say rather very limited number of countries and I'm not sure that any country can host in a proper way such a huge tournament without proper preparation and the time left is not giving you optimism to prepare well yeah fair enough I think that pretty much sums up most of the stuff I guess just with regards to a couple of things that you also brought up in your last comments one is in terms of the national team and the management of the national team now of course there is one part of it which is the politics of it how that goes on and you also being from a highly political part of the world I'm sure that's as much in your system as it is in ours in India but the other part is doing your job and the management of it and we've seen unfortunately a series of whether it's planning mistakes or execution mistakes just small things that reflect a kind of careless attitude towards the national team even though some of the people involved in those jobs are you know highly paid professionals what's your interaction been like in that scenario and how do you respond to when things affect particularly national teams irrespective of what the age groups are Rishan I deal with what I got you know you tell me that there is a time for you three days and I need to organize myself for three days work and do my best and you could notice that I haven't been complaining much but what I was not happy about is not being given enough chance to promote football and speak about football and that's why why I was angry that's one of the reasons why why went and organized PC by myself without support of AIF and people needs to understand there is no miscommunication between me and anyone there and I'm not here in India to point finger at anyone I am paid and contracted to give advice to help in everything what's possible to make Indian football greater and that's that's what I do but keeping me away from answering questions or giving interviews it's not the way we're going to help football if I give advices and I suggest something and that something is being ignored by some of the stakeholders and then I'm not given chance to speak about it we have a problem and there became I would say disappointment coming at me because when I was joining India I was so ambitious and happy about the greatest challenge in the world in football world believe me being in charge of Indian football national team it's by far the greatest challenge in football world there is no greater one considering at the time when I was taking over the how short was the season how the number of the game players played the off season time the weakness on the muscle strength so there was a huge you know and then you expect everyone to push forward you expect everyone at the beginning to push forward but of course some things for others are other priorities other parts they have their priorities and then you feel left there in the middle of nowhere and finding yourself in a situation where you cannot see the exit you cannot find the points where you can feel optimism about what you need to do but I said okay problem is there and there must be a solution if we go through the process of suffering without consequences we're gonna get to the point where we're gonna become recognized as a success and we never lost the faith in what we do that was the most important we never lost the faith I felt sorry because you will remember at the first press conference I said especially to the journalist you are part of the family don't point fingers at us heavily let us go through the process without criticizing too much let's try to keep positive let's try to recognize thing I'm available to you anytime you like to speak about to answer your questions and to explain what we do and why we doing it that way but obviously most of the people present there and who heard me talking didn't remember or they didn't want to remember I had also a huge part of those who didn't want me there to become a coach they were supporting some other candidate at the beginning and they were surprised when I was appointed so from the very beginning they were they were just waiting for me to slip down I don't know I guess the Jikistan or against North Korea or whoever was there you know it was just the reason more for them to blame me or my capacities as a coach and I don't have problem with that because they are very quiet now I don't see them I don't hear them you know and it's not really important to me but for those who could hear me and who could understand what I was saying and they were not there for us they have another chance now to join the trade to start behaving differently to start understanding football and how it works football process in a different way this is a new chance for them to become more positive about what we can achieve if given proper time for love. All right very nice figure I think we'll wind up on you know yesterday there was a bit of news unfortunate news coach being sent back from the under 17 women's football camp you have experienced football around the world and women's football of course is growing and Europe again is is quite central to the growth of women's football what kind of advice are you giving on that front to whoever is is listening in order to have safeguards in place that ensure that particularly young teams young national teams and club sides you know these kind of incidents are reduced as much as possible and when they happen there's a system in place that allows for it to you know be brought to attention and sorted out. No listen I don't know too much about it it would be I would make unjustice doing comments all I know is what I read from the newspapers obviously misconduct is there and that's the reason why the coach was sent back home and he needs to face heavy consequences if it's proved that he was doing misconduct with some of the young girls there you know so that's that's all I can say shouldn't happen never never needs to be sanctioned heavily not only by the football organization court of justice needs to take measures there. All right okay all right Igor we leave it at that we've had you for more than an hour we'll let you also get back to your your day and and on of course the note that you left us with which is that you are always available to us to talk football and to discuss things and and to seek your actual to understand what your thought process is behind it because one of the issues that we've had as journalists particularly those of us who for the past two years have been completely cut out from the system you know zero communication if you do not have any communication then you can't understand what the process might be what the thought might be then I have the problem then I have the problem because you start guessing yeah we are guessing you cannot make your judgments uh adequately when you start guessing then you go the wrong way because you know what's happening inside that's why my anger was coming there that's why I didn't want anyone from AIF being involved in my PC after the Asia Cup qualifiers because that's my words in a way I want to pass to the public with everyone welcome from the from your family from the media to be there to hear to put questions in front you know and that's the way it needs to be done because I will remind you again we are all same family we you are very important to to us and to our job to know as much as possible about what we do how we are planning to achieve things and the process we're going to go through and that's going to make your job easier not to go absolutely the public create public opinion yeah with the guessing you know without guessing with actual information with actual information that's right I was looking at at I would say all your shows you know you you you were surprised last time when I told you that but I am a person which is committed to the job and public opinion is very important to me and you are the ones who are creating public opinion it's not me you are the ones because how you see how you guess how much you know about national team coach work that's what you trust us to the public absolutely and that's why I want you to stay close to us to get as much information which is needed for you to to inform the public properly because I mentioned last time football knowledge is very low in India you know some of the boys who are there and making comments you know play coach 20 games per season they don't even know that you cannot do that you know there is five FIFA windows during the year with two friendly games which is 10 games per year including qualifiers yeah and you cannot get the players from the clubs besides that whenever you want yeah we need to teach these people what are the football rules and what national team coaches they're they're having in their hands you know so let's let's change few things also in regards to this communication from my part it will be the same I will be available for you guys there always I hope that we're gonna sort out things in the AIFF in regards to that and we're gonna we're gonna have open door for everyone and welcome for the critics and for those who are seeing different you know to put the questions to discuss football to speak about plans and to work together absolutely on that on that note of good communication and optimism Igor Simaj thank you very much for the time you have given to 420 grams wheeler of course I have lots of questions not always be in agreement but but hopefully be able to sit at a table and talk about it as long as it's football thanks once again and and all the best for the coming months we hope to hear more with regards to the preparation and and and what happens with the AFC Asian Cup but also lots of other things happening in Indian football so we'll keep an eye on all of that as well you've been watching this interview one-on-one with with the head coach of the Indian national team on 420 grams and news click if you like this and and we hope we Igor was talking earlier asking where everyone else is so hopefully next time we can have a proper adda a proper sit down with René D. Yishwak, Pandit Jaydeep and the rest of the gang and it can be a wider conversation maybe when the league kicks off again but until then until then stay safe take care thank you everyone for watching do like subscribe share as widely as possible we'll see you next time goodbye