Kolkata: No more foreign coaches, The All India Football Federation have finally shown their faith on Indian coaches, as Floyd Pinto has officially been selected as the Head Coach of the Indian Arrows Football Team in the forthcoming I-League to replace Luis Norton De Matos. Pinto has already travelled to Spain where his India U20 team will play the prestigious COTIF tournament against the likes of Argentina and Venezuela U20 teams, but his role over there is to play the void of Matos as an interim coach. But today, after a meeting of the technical committee of the All India Football Federation, it is decided that they will keep their faith on Pinto only.
In an interaction with www.xtratime.in , The AIFF Technical Committee Chairman Shyam Thapa said, “Yes, we are relying on Indian coaches. I had proposed the names of Sanjoy Sen and Biswajit Bhattacharya as well, but we believed that Floyd has done a wonderful job with these players, he worked with Matos as well and more importantly Pinto knows all the players better than anybody else, so he has been selected as the new successor of Pinto.” He added, “If you see in this World Cup, the majority of the countries have their domestic coaches on the hot seat. Because they know the psychology of the players, their pulse and their culture. Even Japan did that as well. We too have decided to follow that model.”
On the flip side of it, Pinto, who is getting ready at Valencia to play the first preparation game of the tour later in the evening, got delighted to get the news from www.xtratime.in . He said, “It’s an exciting news for sure. Thanks for the news. You are first to inform me about it. I’m looking forward to it.”