Sabyasachi Bagchi: I League is now at its business end and there are four contenders in the form of Minerva Punjab FC, Neroca FC, East Bengal & Mohun Bagan who can win the title. Though, Minerva is in slightly better position to claim this prestigious league. They won a very crucial match today beating Aizawl FC 2-0 which helped them to reach at the top of the table.
Dr. Amit Bhattacharya, a psychologist associated with the team who also worked with Abhinav Bindra who won Gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. www.xtratime.in talked with him to know the secret behind the success story of the club. “The team was morally down after losing two consecutive games. They were defensive and lost the positivity. I used the same training method in a modified way as I did for East Bengal in the 2009-10 season When red and golds lost three matches against their arch rivals Mohun Bagan. We used various techniques of meditation and some stretchings and some exercises with their tongue to control the adrenaline rush and they were asked to chant “We shall win, we will win”. Today they worked on it and got the result. A morally down team worked hard till the last minute of the match and scored two goals. The players were happy.”, He said about his process of work.
While answering the question about how he showed the winning ways to the team he said, “After loosing a couple of games, motivational talks doesn’t work. The team needs instant result as we use some meditation and other visualisation techniques and also use ‘dead man therapy’ what I used earlier for Abhinav Bindra in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games when the clip of his rifle got damaged. He didn’t perform well in first few shots but came back strongly hitting 10 to qualify for the finals. In this therapy we have to co-relate the body and the mind of the player. As a result, nothing bothers the person.” “Minerva Punjab wants to hire me as the team owner Ranjit Bajaj told me after the match but I generally work with individual sports persons. So I have to think about it. I promised them that I will help the team to bring back the aggression and intensity so that they can win the match.”
He also discussed about his next mission with the team. “I never talk with the team owner and the coaches as I did earlier also. I believe that to know a person or player we need to talk only with him. They can hesitate to share some personal problems which will not help me.”