Kolkata: Former Brazilian footballer and head coach of FC Goa feel the number of foreign players in the ISL teams is not helping the standard of Indian football. Speaking to the reporters ahead of Sunday’s mouth watering clash against Atletico de Kolkata, Zico said, “So far we have more foreigners playing in the Indian Super League (ISL) teams and that I feel it is not helping the standard of Indian football. Ideally, we need to have more Indians playing in the different teams.”
Citing the example of other leagues in Asia where the quota for foreigners is restricted to 3 in the playing XI, Indian Super League franchise have as many as 6 foreigners playing in the XI.
“The top leagues in Asia have three foreigners playing in the starting XI along with a Asian origin footballer. We need to have more Indian players playing in the league. There is talent no doubt in India. It is still a long way to go for India to compete with the top teams in the world. There is still a lot of room for improvement”
Zico said the performances of the Indian national team haven’t been great in the last three years so the impact of the Indian Super League (ISL) is still to be witnessed.
“See the national team’s performance in these years. There hasn’t been much improvement. Overall there is still a long way to go. We do have good talents coming from ISL but I feel Indian players need to play in key positions. Now striker, midfielder places are occupied by foreign players,” he said.
India, in contrast, have won nine out of their 11 matches this year which has been a sharp departure from their poor string of results last year in the World Cup qualifiers.
Zico also vouched for a longer league. “A longer league will certainly be better.”
Goa has lost three matches in a row, a first for last season’s finalists. Zico though refused to read too much into their early form saying ‘nothing is lost yet.’
“If we win two games we will be at par with ATK. So nothing is lost yet. In this tournament it does not matter if you finish first or fourth. What matters is making the playoffs.
“We are focussed on that. ATK are a nice side and we will do our best to neutraise their power.”
Zico confirmed that there are no injury concerns at present for his team.