@Deb_Ban: Or as a certain club did a few years back, pay 2 crores to simply survive in the League
@EastBengalPride: "Duo could get life banned if not able to prove innocence and CCFC stripped off the title and banned." Where did you get this info? it is not mentioned in the source you have cited
Most Bengali media is certainly unreliable...however, they sometimes publish authentic news
ABP is a bit more reliable than general Bengali media...their track record is better than the other dailies. In this case, I don't think that the basic fact, the show-cause to the two players, Manzi and the Minerva goalkeeper, is incorrect.
Many EB fans like me feel that Chennai City certainly deserved to win the title...EB played well in the later stages but CCFC were a notch better. @EastBengalPride has also said so
However if any match fixing is found I also feel both clubs and all the involved players should be banned for life, stripped off all titles and awards and a criminal case lodged against them.
It was 2015. Akbar Nawas was head coach of the Tampines Rovers reserve team. The five-time champions of Singapore had a rich tradition of winning trophies at the senior level, but took a more casual approach when it came to the reserves. Nawas knew that. Their practice sessions on the training pitch were limited to 40-odd minutes before or after the senior team had finished using it. His staff and he had picked the team hastily just a week before the reserve league was about to start, ending up with “18 midfielders and no defenders". Their first match was against Geylang International FC. They lost 5-1.
As the players walked out, dejected, Nawas—whose son plays professional football—thought to himself, “What if it was him walking out like that?" According to Nawas, he had not pushed the players, or prepared them. “I felt sad seeing them. I hadn’t done them justice. I was so casual, like the most idiot coach you could find."
In the dressing room, Nawas sat his players around him and made a promise. “I told them, ‘I promise you that I will never let you get beaten 5-1 again. I will make you unbeatable. I will make you a team to be feared.’"
Of course, they lost a few games on the way, but Nawas and his team won the reserve championship that season.
Four years since that career-changing loss, Nawas was being flung in the air in celebration by his Chennai City FC players after they were crowned the I-League champions. His band of experienced Spaniards and firebrand young Indian players had won a tightly contested league which went into the final round of matches. But it wasn’t the fact that Nawas’ team had won which endeared them to Indian football fans. It was, rather, the way they had won.
Nawas employed a highly entertaining attacking style of football. Data from analytics company Instat shows that Chennai City made the most number of passes per match (484) and created the most number of goal-scoring chances in the league (136). They had a better scoring rate (2.4 goals per match) than the last eight I-League winners, hammering 48 goals in 20 matches.
Such was the confidence Nawas built in his team that they fought back four times when they were trailing in a match to eventually win. After the I-League, Chennai City beat FC Pune City and Indian Super League champions Bengaluru FC in the Super Cup. They lost to eventual winners FC Goa in the semi-finals, but against Bengaluru especially, Nawas’ men showed that they could win by mixing grit with guile.
“When I was a player, my coach played me wingback a few times. I always roamed forward and loved attacking. I wondered why no one covered my position when I went ahead. Part of this instinct is in my coaching philosophy. I ask my team to play positional possession—not just possession. At all times, every position on the pitch must be filled in if someone leaves it empty by roaming into attack," Nawas explains. This constant movement and combination play has become a hallmark of Nawas’ teams.
This plan required players of a certain kind. Nawas got former Barcelona and Manchester City technical scout Jordi Vila on board as his assistant and youth development head. The Spaniard left for New York City FC before the season began, but only after identifying the quartet of Pedro Manzi, Nestor Gordillo, Sandro Rodriguez and Roberto Eslava from the lower rungs of Spanish football. Together, they contributed 40 goals and 19 assists in the I-League. Manzi scored five hat-tricks, including one in the Super Cup. These were phenomenal numbers to end the campaign with.
Akbar Nawas.
But it’s the performance of the Indian players who played alongside the Spanish contingent that is Nawas’ true certificate of excellence. Traditionally, Indians are not entrusted with passing football, especially the kind employed by Nawas, which involves building up play from behind— yet all Chennai City goalkeepers have made more passes per match than their striker Manzi despite playing fewer games than him.
“When I saw the first training session, I was worried—the Spanish players were just left looking at each other in exasperation. But I believe every player can be coached. It was down to us to pick the right ones and enforce the system through training every week," he says.
He is no stranger to difficulties—unbeknownst to most, Nawas has faced his own hurdles in life. As a player, he suffered numerous injuries but blames himself for never recovering: “I was too lazy for rehab. Once, after an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury, I went from 55kg to 80kg in a few months." Raised by a single parent, Nawas learnt to admit his failures and turned them into an empathetic way of coaching. He ran an event management business while acquiring his coaching licences, until he became part of the Singapore FA set-up as a learning coach who was also in-charge of the nation’s various age-group teams.
“A lot of coaches come from Europe and apply what they have learnt there to any team in the world. That doesn’t work—you have to adapt. You will be surprised, but I don’t believe in passing drills any more. I used to, at one point, be obsessed about it. Now my drills are about decision-making. Passing is all about decisions—decisions under pressure, and replicating this pressure in training every week is what makes you do so well in games. When I saw the complex drills of (top Dutch club) Ajax, it amazed me. But some of these philosophies are fixed—some passes have to go from point A to B. I don’t think so. I change it up, according to what challenges and works for my players," Nawas says. It is the same with motivating players, and he would rather use the traditional way of “psyching them up" with a speech and a whiteboard than showing them tactical videos before a game.
Another aspect of his philosophy is to include local talent. Through painstaking scouting and open trials, he got the right mix. Alexander Romario, Ajith Kumar, Pravitto Raju, Edwin Vanspaul and Michael Regin are just some of the Tamil Nadu players who were a vital part of Chennai City’s remarkable journey. Much like Akbar Nawas, who, in his typical unassuming style, transformed a team which had finished eighth twice in a row into champions of the I-League.
4 years, 6 trophies: What went wrong for Minerva Punjab FC this season?
Wooden spooners, well, almost.
Germany won the FIFA World Cup 2014, and crashed out of the tournament during the group stage in 2018, registering just one – hard-fought – victory in the tournament’s entirety. The team struggled with its misguided loyalty on players who had past their sell-by dates and stagnation culminating in a footballing formulae that became too rigid for their own fluidity.
It wasn’t the case with Minerva Punjab FC though as they cruised to the I-League title in one season and crumbled like pieces to the bottom of the poll (well, almost) the next. There wasn’t stagnation – new players and a coach had been welcomed in. Some players returned from loan deals and some left. Pretty basic club dealings.
What went wrong then? Three major issues.
The battles beyond the pitch
Minerva was in the midst of a storm that slowly but gradually encircled it and Indian football and the Super Cup, later, became the epicentre. Their tussle against the All India Football Federation cost them a little too much, and the club never really looked like the force that lifted the spoils last season.
Owner Ranjit Bajaj’s constant spats did not help. The controversy surrounding the away match against Real Kashmir just after the Pulwama attacks did not help either. Bajaj time and again made his stand loud and clear against the Indian Super League, a private tournament that looks set to become the Premier League of the country replacing the I-league. That earned him the ire of the Federation and didn’t make life easy.
He blamed the Federation, much later after his disappointing league sojourn had ended, for not getting a stadium for AFC commitments. That matter got resolved later, but left a sour taste in the Federation due to the blame game played by the club.
Former players William Opoku and Yu Kuboki accused the club for ill-treating them when they moved on, an allegation the club’s image group had to fight hard.
Tactical approach
Paul Munster, from Northern Ireland, was a big-name entry to manage the side that had lifted the trophy and was set to take the side to the higher echelons of Asian competitions, but that idea did not last long. Minerva lost 4-0 to Iran's Saipa FC in their AFC Champions League clash, and slid back to the AFC Cup group stage.
In the league and in Asia, the team has looked a shadow of its past. With Chencho Gyeltshen first signing for Bengaluru FC and then moving on loan to NEROCA, the club lost its most influential attacker and failed to replace him adequately in the transfer market. The lack of quality foreigners further aggrieved their condition.
After Munster’s exodus, Sachin Badadhe got promoted, but did not have enough time or money to buy his way out of crisis, and the way teams were set up, it looked uninspired and lacking in ideas. Just four wins in 19 outings mirrors that.
Transfers
Too much impetus and responsibility were given to unheralded and untested Indian players, and they expectedly fell short of delivering the goods day-in and day-out. The foreign core earned their fair share of credits when Minerva stormed to the title, but it wasn’t their when they needed it for retaining it. The loss of it, and the lack of replacements, hit the club hard.
The monetary condition, Bajaj time and again has reiterated, isn’t the best. Kouame Konan Zacharie’s red card against Gokulam Kerala early in the game broke Minerva’s rhythm. Such moments have been crucial, and while statistics cannot always back footballing logics, the transfers looked weak even on paper, let alone on the pitch.
The club may or may not shut shop, but doesn’t look too inspiring at the moment. The mood, probably affected by the all-inclusive I-league-ISL tussle led by their owner, is too diverted from the game. With the AFC encounters coming fast, it remains to be seen how the Warriors pull off miracles, like they did when they lifted the trophy.
Comments
@EastBengalPride: "Duo could get life banned if not able to prove innocence and CCFC stripped off the title and banned."
Where did you get this info? it is not mentioned in the source you have cited
ABP is a bit more reliable than general Bengali media...their track record is better than the other dailies. In this case, I don't think that the basic fact, the show-cause to the two players, Manzi and the Minerva goalkeeper, is incorrect.
Many EB fans like me feel that Chennai City certainly deserved to win the title...EB played well in the later stages but CCFC were a notch better. @EastBengalPride has also said so
I-League: Akbar Nawas’ winning formula
It was 2015. Akbar Nawas was head coach of the Tampines Rovers reserve team. The five-time champions of Singapore had a rich tradition of winning trophies at the senior level, but took a more casual approach when it came to the reserves. Nawas knew that. Their practice sessions on the training pitch were limited to 40-odd minutes before or after the senior team had finished using it. His staff and he had picked the team hastily just a week before the reserve league was about to start, ending up with “18 midfielders and no defenders". Their first match was against Geylang International FC. They lost 5-1.
As the players walked out, dejected, Nawas—whose son plays professional football—thought to himself, “What if it was him walking out like that?" According to Nawas, he had not pushed the players, or prepared them. “I felt sad seeing them. I hadn’t done them justice. I was so casual, like the most idiot coach you could find."
In the dressing room, Nawas sat his players around him and made a promise. “I told them, ‘I promise you that I will never let you get beaten 5-1 again. I will make you unbeatable. I will make you a team to be feared.’"
Of course, they lost a few games on the way, but Nawas and his team won the reserve championship that season.
Four years since that career-changing loss, Nawas was being flung in the air in celebration by his Chennai City FC players after they were crowned the I-League champions. His band of experienced Spaniards and firebrand young Indian players had won a tightly contested league which went into the final round of matches. But it wasn’t the fact that Nawas’ team had won which endeared them to Indian football fans. It was, rather, the way they had won.
Nawas employed a highly entertaining attacking style of football. Data from analytics company Instat shows that Chennai City made the most number of passes per match (484) and created the most number of goal-scoring chances in the league (136). They had a better scoring rate (2.4 goals per match) than the last eight I-League winners, hammering 48 goals in 20 matches.
Such was the confidence Nawas built in his team that they fought back four times when they were trailing in a match to eventually win. After the I-League, Chennai City beat FC Pune City and Indian Super League champions Bengaluru FC in the Super Cup. They lost to eventual winners FC Goa in the semi-finals, but against Bengaluru especially, Nawas’ men showed that they could win by mixing grit with guile.
“When I was a player, my coach played me wingback a few times. I always roamed forward and loved attacking. I wondered why no one covered my position when I went ahead. Part of this instinct is in my coaching philosophy. I ask my team to play positional possession—not just possession. At all times, every position on the pitch must be filled in if someone leaves it empty by roaming into attack," Nawas explains. This constant movement and combination play has become a hallmark of Nawas’ teams.
This plan required players of a certain kind. Nawas got former Barcelona and Manchester City technical scout Jordi Vila on board as his assistant and youth development head. The Spaniard left for New York City FC before the season began, but only after identifying the quartet of Pedro Manzi, Nestor Gordillo, Sandro Rodriguez and Roberto Eslava from the lower rungs of Spanish football. Together, they contributed 40 goals and 19 assists in the I-League. Manzi scored five hat-tricks, including one in the Super Cup. These were phenomenal numbers to end the campaign with.
But it’s the performance of the Indian players who played alongside the Spanish contingent that is Nawas’ true certificate of excellence. Traditionally, Indians are not entrusted with passing football, especially the kind employed by Nawas, which involves building up play from behind— yet all Chennai City goalkeepers have made more passes per match than their striker Manzi despite playing fewer games than him.
“When I saw the first training session, I was worried—the Spanish players were just left looking at each other in exasperation. But I believe every player can be coached. It was down to us to pick the right ones and enforce the system through training every week," he says.
He is no stranger to difficulties—unbeknownst to most, Nawas has faced his own hurdles in life. As a player, he suffered numerous injuries but blames himself for never recovering: “I was too lazy for rehab. Once, after an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury, I went from 55kg to 80kg in a few months." Raised by a single parent, Nawas learnt to admit his failures and turned them into an empathetic way of coaching. He ran an event management business while acquiring his coaching licences, until he became part of the Singapore FA set-up as a learning coach who was also in-charge of the nation’s various age-group teams.
“A lot of coaches come from Europe and apply what they have learnt there to any team in the world. That doesn’t work—you have to adapt. You will be surprised, but I don’t believe in passing drills any more. I used to, at one point, be obsessed about it. Now my drills are about decision-making. Passing is all about decisions—decisions under pressure, and replicating this pressure in training every week is what makes you do so well in games. When I saw the complex drills of (top Dutch club) Ajax, it amazed me. But some of these philosophies are fixed—some passes have to go from point A to B. I don’t think so. I change it up, according to what challenges and works for my players," Nawas says. It is the same with motivating players, and he would rather use the traditional way of “psyching them up" with a speech and a whiteboard than showing them tactical videos before a game.
Another aspect of his philosophy is to include local talent. Through painstaking scouting and open trials, he got the right mix. Alexander Romario, Ajith Kumar, Pravitto Raju, Edwin Vanspaul and Michael Regin are just some of the Tamil Nadu players who were a vital part of Chennai City’s remarkable journey. Much like Akbar Nawas, who, in his typical unassuming style, transformed a team which had finished eighth twice in a row into champions of the I-League.
https://www.livemint.com/
4 years, 6 trophies: What went wrong for Minerva Punjab FC this season?
Wooden spooners, well, almost.
Germany won the FIFA World Cup 2014, and crashed out of the tournament during the group stage in 2018, registering just one – hard-fought – victory in the tournament’s entirety. The team struggled with its misguided loyalty on players who had past their sell-by dates and stagnation culminating in a footballing formulae that became too rigid for their own fluidity.
It wasn’t the case with Minerva Punjab FC though as they cruised to the I-League title in one season and crumbled like pieces to the bottom of the poll (well, almost) the next. There wasn’t stagnation – new players and a coach had been welcomed in. Some players returned from loan deals and some left. Pretty basic club dealings.
What went wrong then? Three major issues.
The battles beyond the pitch
Minerva was in the midst of a storm that slowly but gradually encircled it and Indian football and the Super Cup, later, became the epicentre. Their tussle against the All India Football Federation cost them a little too much, and the club never really looked like the force that lifted the spoils last season.
Owner Ranjit Bajaj’s constant spats did not help. The controversy surrounding the away match against Real Kashmir just after the Pulwama attacks did not help either. Bajaj time and again made his stand loud and clear against the Indian Super League, a private tournament that looks set to become the Premier League of the country replacing the I-league. That earned him the ire of the Federation and didn’t make life easy.
He blamed the Federation, much later after his disappointing league sojourn had ended, for not getting a stadium for AFC commitments. That matter got resolved later, but left a sour taste in the Federation due to the blame game played by the club.
Former players William Opoku and Yu Kuboki accused the club for ill-treating them when they moved on, an allegation the club’s image group had to fight hard.
Tactical approach
Paul Munster, from Northern Ireland, was a big-name entry to manage the side that had lifted the trophy and was set to take the side to the higher echelons of Asian competitions, but that idea did not last long. Minerva lost 4-0 to Iran's Saipa FC in their AFC Champions League clash, and slid back to the AFC Cup group stage.
In the league and in Asia, the team has looked a shadow of its past. With Chencho Gyeltshen first signing for Bengaluru FC and then moving on loan to NEROCA, the club lost its most influential attacker and failed to replace him adequately in the transfer market. The lack of quality foreigners further aggrieved their condition.
After Munster’s exodus, Sachin Badadhe got promoted, but did not have enough time or money to buy his way out of crisis, and the way teams were set up, it looked uninspired and lacking in ideas. Just four wins in 19 outings mirrors that.
Transfers
Too much impetus and responsibility were given to unheralded and untested Indian players, and they expectedly fell short of delivering the goods day-in and day-out. The foreign core earned their fair share of credits when Minerva stormed to the title, but it wasn’t their when they needed it for retaining it. The loss of it, and the lack of replacements, hit the club hard.
The monetary condition, Bajaj time and again has reiterated, isn’t the best. Kouame Konan Zacharie’s red card against Gokulam Kerala early in the game broke Minerva’s rhythm. Such moments have been crucial, and while statistics cannot always back footballing logics, the transfers looked weak even on paper, let alone on the pitch.
The club may or may not shut shop, but doesn’t look too inspiring at the moment. The mood, probably affected by the all-inclusive I-league-ISL tussle led by their owner, is too diverted from the game. With the AFC encounters coming fast, it remains to be seen how the Warriors pull off miracles, like they did when they lifted the trophy.