Lothar Matthaus during an interaction with students in Kolkata.
Credit: PTI Photo
Indian football continues to languish with the Blue Tigers currently perched at 136 in FIFA rankings.
The team is yet to find a replacement for retired striker Sunil Chhetri while uncertainty continues to hover over country's premier football league.
While everything cannot be fixed in one go, to revive the 'Beautiful Game' in India, German football legend Lothar Matthaus believes only best coaches can produce good footballers and that the country will need to bring in legends and former players of the game to train their coaches.
“You get good footballers only when they learn from the best coaches. India needs good coaches to produce better footballers,” Matthaus told media on the sideline of a promotional event in Kolkata.
The 1986 World Cup-winner with Germany said India, the world’s most populated country, cannot be in a situation where it does not play in the quadrennial extravaganza while smaller countries like Cape Verde make it to the global event.
“A good teacher makes a good student. And when you've a bad teacher, or a bad professor, you don’t get good students. To start, you bring the legends, ex-players and reputed coaches to India to teach your coaches. Then these coaches can help the new generation of players. You have to start this at the school level.”
Matthaus cited the example of Cape Verde, which will play in next year’s World Cup despite having only a million people as their population.
“For example Cape Verde, which has a population of just half a million people, is going to the World Cup. You've the highest population in the world and you don’t go to the World Cup? This can't be,” Matthaus said.
“You've to find a system which'll involve the football federation, the Government, the clubs and the academies to work for a common goal like you've in cricket, hockey or chess where you've produced world champions,” added Matthaus.
The 64-year-old admitted that Germany has lacked passion and camaraderie for a while now, given that the former World Cup winners were eliminated from the group stages in the last two editions of the competition.
“This isn't what we expect from the national team,” he said, adding, “lack of passion and camaraderie,” as the reasons behind their ordinary show.
“We need the passion that was our plus factor in the 80s. We used to play with passion and love. We were playing together and this is what I'm missing now in the German team."
“But this is a job for the coach. And when the coach can bring this team together like maybe the way we used to be 10, 15 or 30 years ago, Germany can again be the team to be in the circle of the favourites,” he added.
Matthaus, who has been named as the global ambassador of the upcoming Bengal Super League, was in Kolkata on Sunday (November 16) for a series of events aimed at promoting football in the state.
(with inputs from agencies)