Sports India

India’s new football coach Bob Houghton was given his first taste of the Capital press conference, courtesy the All India Football Federation, on the naturalised home turf of its president Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi. After the lulling calm that the Goan environs offered, this must have come as some sort of eye-opener for the journeyman British coach. Kolkata’s next, in early August.

In a sauna-like conference hall of the Dr Ambedkar Stadium which probably also doubles up as the computer store room for the stadium authorities or the local Delhi Soccer Association, Houghton, immaculately but horribly over-dressed in his suit and tie, must have squirmed in his seat when Dasmunsi raised his voice over the cameraman banter asking for order. And got it. If this was so easy, imagine him getting his way in and out of team selection and other less-subtle ways to show who’s boss.

Welcome to Indian football, Mr Houghton. You might as well have brought along a copy of FIFA Manager ‘06 for your Indian stint. You could need it, you never know.

After a two-minute monologue dripping with self-important pomp over the status of Bhaichung Bhutia and his continuing - or severed - sojourn with the Indian National team, and needless to add, his role in the whole thing, the AIFF president let his latest high-profile appointment take the floor. Houghton, despite not saying anything new, immediately displayed a relaxed candour and a quiet earnestness. All of it honed no doubt, by years and years of travelling and coaching in moody, foreign climes (Remember, he’s been a football coach since he was 27.)

A sworn fan of the long ball, even if he likes to disguise the use of much-derided idea with the expression “move the ball around, quickly", Houghton’s insistence that the Indian set-up required a good number of tall strapping boys may have sounded slightly out of place, but was sold remarkably well by the new coach. “A lot of goals in today’s game come off set-pieces. The World Cup final has been testimony to that.

“My gut feeling is that modern soccer players are simply growing bigger each season and India cannot remain an exception. We plan to get one or two physically bigger and stronger boys for India’s future campaigns once we return from Vancouver.”

Houghton’s single-mindedness for six-foot-plus players came to the fore when he revealed he had asked for the services of Manipur’s Sushil Singh and when he singled out Micky Fernandes and Freddy Mascarenhas for their height. These three are part of the squad that will leave early on Monday for the four-team tournament in Vancouver.

But just when Houghton seemed settling into a groove, his president remembered it was time for him to announce to the media of his meeting with the FIFA president Sepp Blatter during the World Cup final. After his string of empty promises on the FIFA supremo, Dasmunsi let the bombshell drop that this time Blatter would not stay for a day but for three days! There was pin-drop silence. It was information we simply couldn’t do without.

Then after what seemed like eternity, wits gathered, someone asked the new coach another question. But it was hijacked by Dasmunsi, who gave his version of it and then called off the press meet as quickly as he had called it.

Then he went out, and got cosy in a sofa high above the ground from where Houghton was directing his new team. Big Brother was watching.