Kolkata: India has not always been kind to foreign coaches specially for the National team. Indian football administrators never quiet liked the idea of a foreign coaches at the helm of affairs. The debate is old and may continue for several years untill anything sparkling success happens. Let’s look back at five best foreign coaches of India after Harry Wright who was the first foreign coach in 1963.
Ciric Milovan was a Serbian football coach and former player. He was the first captain of Red Star Belgrade (1946–1947) but in June 1947, he moved to city rivals FK Partizan (1947–1948). With FK Partizan he won Yugoslav cup (1947). After finished his career as a player, Ćirić first worked as a coach in FK Partizan (1948–1951) as youth team manager. Throughout his long career he’s coached OFK Beograd (1951–1953), FK Partizan (1953/54), Yugoslavia national football team (from May to October 1954 as part of a 5-man commission along with Branko Pešić, Aleksandar Tirnanić, Leo Lemešić, and Franjo Wölfl as well as from December 1973 to July 1974 as part of another 5-man commission featuring Miljan Miljanić, Milan Ribar, Sulejman Rebac, and Tomislav Ivić), Red Star Belgrade (1954–1957, 1975/76), S.S. Lazio (1957/58), Hajduk Split (1958–1961, 1963/64), OFK Beograd (1961–1963, 1964/65), Israel national football team (1965–1968), Beşiktaş J.K. (1968/69), Aris FC (1969/71), Valencia CF (1974/75), India national football team (1985) His arrival in 1984 was crucial for Indian football, as legends like Subhas Bhowmik, Shyam Thapa, Surajit Sengupta, Habib, Sudhir Karmakar were hanging up their boots and domestic football was losing its popularity to cricket. He quickly assembled a team with mostly young stars like Krishanu Dey, Sudip Chatterjee, Atanu Bhattacharya, Biswajit Bhattyacharya, Shabbir Ali, Derrick Pereira, Mauricio Alphonso, Pem Dorji, Brahmanand Sankhwalkar, Bikash Panji and Parminder Singh. Under his coaching India may not have won anything significant but played good football against top class opponents. During his tenure India qualified for the main rounds of the Asian Cup via standard qualifiers. In the Asian Cup, India finished at the bottom of Group B, with losses against China, UAE and Singapore. However, India did manage a point with a goalless draw against Iran. Under Milovan, the most notable win was against Algeria’s World Cup squad in Beijing in a friendly. Everyone still remembers the Indian team’s performance during the Nehru Cup under Milovan. Playing against strong teams like Poland and Argentina, India held their own, losing only marginally. He instilled faith and showed Indian players a glimpse of modern football.
Rustam Akramov is a former Uzbek football coach. He has coached the Uzbekistan national football team from 1992 to 1994 and then the India national football team from 1995 to 1997.
He was recently debunked by the Uzbekistan Football Federation for his unsportsmanlike conduct while serving as technical director for Uzbekistan football like Milovan, it is again very difficult to judge Akramov’s true worth as Indian coach if we consider winning a major trophy as a benchmark. Unlike his successor Bob Houghton, who was always were very cautious to give young players a breakthrough, Akramov gave a young teenager from Sikkim direct entry into the starting eleven of India. Akramov helped that boy, Bhaichung Bhutia, to shape up as a striker who used to play as an attacking midfielder at club level. Bhaichung returned the favor by scoring against Uzbekistan during the Nehru Cup. He was the first ever foreign coach to demand an pan-Indian league and 300 professional footballers. His tenure was also short but showed glimpses of hope as he managed to build a team with some talented footballers. In my opinion, the Indian team owed it’s 1997 SAFF Cup title to Akramov who had assembled and worked hard with the likes of Bhaichung, IM Vijayan, Carlton Chapman, Bruno Coutinho, Basudeb Mondal, Aqeel Ansari, and Savio Medeira before leaving the job and Nayeem was handed the job and eventually won the cup.
Stephen Constantine is an English professional football coach and former player who currently manages the India national football team.
After retiring from playing, Constantine spent his early coaching career in the United States and Cyprus.
Constantine coached the Nepalese national team between 1999 and 2001, and was awarded a medal by the country’s King. Constantine was then manager of the Indian national team from 2002 to 2005. After leaving India he was the first-team coach and reserve team manager for English club Millwall during the 2005–06 season. He has also worked in England for Bournemouth.
In January 2007 he was on a two-man shortlist, alongside Carlos Alberto da Luz, for the manager’s job of the Malawi national team. He was named as Malawi manager in February 2007, with the role beginning on 1 March 2007. He resigned in April 2008.
He became manager of the Sudan national team in February 2009. After leaving Sudan he managed in the Cypriot domestic leagues with APEP and Nea Salamis Famagusta, the latter of which he guided to promotion in the Cypriot First Division. He was also manager of Ethnikos Achna from December 2012 to February 2013.
In December 2014, it was reported that Constantine would become the next head coach of India again, after Wim Koevermans’ contract ran out. He would beat the favorite for the position, Ricki Herbert. On 16 January 2015, it was confirmed that Constantine had returned to take over India for a second stint.
On 25 February 2015, Constantine’s first India squad was announced when the 32-man probables were revealed for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Nepal in March. His first match as India head coach came on 12 March 2015 in the qualifier against Nepal at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium. Two goals from Sunil Chhetri lead India to a 2–0 victory and lead going into the second leg in Kathmandu. A 0–0 draw at the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium saw India progress to the next round of World Cup/Asian Cup qualifying. As a result of India’s top results against Nepal, the country saw a rise by 26 in the April FIFA World Rankings to 147.
In April 2015, it was announced that India would be placed in Group D for the World Cup/Asian Cup qualifiers with Asia’s top side, Iran, as well as Oman, Turkmenistan, and Guam. The group stage did not begin well however as India fell 2–1 to both at home to Oman and away to Guam. The defeat to Guam brought about a lot of criticism of Constantine’s men since the island of Guam was ranked well below India coming into the match and due to India’s much larger population. In response, Constantine went into the media about how he believed that India should be allowed to use players of Indian origin and that if he was allowed to do so then India would have fared much better against Oman and Guam. In January 2016, Constantine led India to the SAFF Championship title, beating Afghanistan 2-1 in the final.
Stephen Constantine, arguably the most qualified coach to manage the Indian national team, came here in 2002. India witnessed many changes in terms of professional training, proper conditioning camps and friendlies during his tenure. Under the Englishman, India won the LG Cup in Vietnam. That was something noteworthy, as we won a trophy outside the Indian subcontinent for the first time since the Asian Games triumph in 1962 in Jakarta. Constantine also guided India to the final of Afro-Asian games. India also played a few friendlies with English clubs and Caribbean sides. Constantine was also very vocal about quality foreigners in the domestic league and tried to implement a similar system with clubs and national team. He picked fresh faces like Abhishek Yadav, Surkumar Singh, Sandip Nandy, Climax Lawrence, Mahesh Gawli, Deepak Mondal, Tomba Singh, James Singh, Renedy Singh, along with Bhaichung and other seniors. These guys later formed the core of Bob Houghton’s team which earned India a place in the AFC Asian Cup after 27 years.
Robert Douglas Houghton is an English football manager and former player. Houghton was most recently the head coach of India. His career has spanned over 30 years and 10 different countries. He is most famous for taking Swedish club Malmö FF to the 1979 European Cup Final, where they lost to Nottingham Forest.
The arrival of Bob Houghton ensured quality foreign camps and the best available amenities for the players. These facilities were not given to Indian footballers in the past. He kept faith on players during bad times too. He always earned respect and love from his players. He also instilled self belief and confidence among all players. Interestingly, few Indian players who retired from international football also came back to play for India during his tenure. Bob utilized a classic 4-4-2 system for India and it was easy to implement the system as most Indian club played this system or some variation of it. He identified his core team with experienced players like Bhaichung Bhutia, Mahesh Gawli, Deepak Mondal, Climax Lawrence, Renedy Singh, Abhishek Yadav, Mehrajuddin Wadoo, Surkumar Singh, and Sandip Nandy. After a few matches he included Steven Dias, Sunil Chhettri, Subrata Pal, Gouramangi Singh, Anwar Ali, and N.P. Pradeep to the squad. He preferred to play with these players for almost four years and earned significant amount of success.
After coaching Chinese side Changsha Ginde for a few months, Houghton was then appointed head coach of India in June 2006 by the All India Football Federation. His appointment saw a general progress in India’s performances crowned by victory in the Nehru Cup in August 2007. The following year India suffered a huge loss when Maldives defeated them at the final of SAFF Championship 2008, despite a 100% record in the group stage, including a victory over the Maldives. However, Houghton led India to the AFC Challenge Cup title as they beat Tajikistan 4–1 in August 2008, which gave India a berth at the Asian cup 2011 in Doha. He also oversaw the Indian team to its second consecutive Nehru Cup trophy win in 2009. He resigned in 2010 after not being able to reach a new contract deal. He later confirmed that his contract had been renewed till 2013, but hinted that he might review his decision after the 2011 Asian Cup. At the Asian Cup, India lost all of their three group matches. As expected,India’s football authorities expressed disappointment over the national team’s performance and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) technical committee urged the executive committee to sack Houghton. On 23 April 2011, Bob Houghton handed in his immediate resignation as the Indian national team coach, which the AIFF accepted. Houghton’s last assignment as Indian coach was the AFC challenge cup 2012 qualifiers in Malaysia, where India topped Group B which included Pakistan, Chinese Taipei and Turkmenistan.
Wilhelmus (“Wim”) Jacobus Koevermans a former football central defender from The Netherlands, who earned one cap for the Netherlands national football team. He was a member of the Dutch team that won the European title at the 1988 European Football Championship in West Germany, although he didn’t play under manager Rinus Michels.
Koevermans played for Fortuna Vlaardingen, FC Vlaardingen, Fortuna Sittard, and FC Groningen. He ended his professional career in 1990. After that he became a football manager, who worked for clubs like NEC Nijmegen, RBC Roosendaal and MVV Maastricht. He was the International High Performance Director of the FAI until he was appointed the coach of India. He resumed his office as the Chief Coach of Indian football team on 1 July 2012. He left the post in October 2014 after India’s loss against Palestine.
Wim Koevermans was assigned one of the toughest jobs by Rob Baan. He was supposed to introduce possession based passing football tactics to a nation that’d learned football from the British and had a long ball based 4-4-2 system in their DNA. Tactical training at an early age for Indian footballers was very rare. So Wim had to rely on almost same set of players to adopt new system. Koevermans replaced Renedy Singh and Steven Dias, and didn’t ignore Mehtab Hossein, Sanju Pradhan, Robin Singh and gave chance to inform youngsters Jewel Raja, Lenny Rodrigues and Alwyn George. India started well under Wim by winning their third Nehru Cup title. India played decent passing football and defeated a strong Cameroon B team to capture the title in Delhi. However, surprisingly, soon after the Nehru Cup victory, the team started to lose their dominance against weaker opponents. Indian players were never seen comfortable with the new system and frequently lost possession easily. To make things worse, India could not qualify for the main round of the AFC Challenge Cup and they touched a new low by losing to Afghanistan in the SAFF Cup final in 2013. Rob Baan and Wim Koevermans neither succeeded to implement the new system nor carried the momentum forward generated by Bob Houghton. It is still difficult to blame this duo for not being able to implement the new system as Indian players grow up playing in a very different system. One cannot expect the players to show rapid changes in their footballing habit which they have been exposed to from very early age. To do that, we need to train young kids of age 7 – 9 both technically and tactically in a systematic manner.