IN A STATE which is passionate and emotional about football, Goans fans were forced to suffer the flak they received due to the performance of the Goa State team in the National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy.  Seldom in the history of Goan football has a team collapsed under its own weight.  For the talent that the boys have as well as the previous showing, this is really baffling.  If there are repeated requests from the people for a probe it is not because the team lost but the manner in which they lost and the circumstances that led to its defeat.

 While it’s understandable for the general public to look for reasons other than footballing but it is disappointing when those at the helm who have been sermonizing the players from the lower divisions and punishing them to downplay such blatant act of sabotage by the Goa State team that brought nothing but disgrace to Goans.  From what we have gathered, we fail to understand how players who were in good mood and the team which was in high morale suddenly started complaining of stomach upsets and ‘imaginary’ injuries.

 There is evidence to show that a couple of Goan NFL team officials did play ‘dirty’.  And this dirty-game is destroying Goan football.  The 2003 and 2004 Santosh Trophy is one massive piece of evidence.  With former football greats and ardent followers questioning the state of football affairs, what is the reason for reducing the Santosh Trophy, considered a supremacy in Indian football, to a level of non importance?  It is necessary on the part of the Goa Football Association to come clean by letting the people know.  Coach Marcus Pacheco should let the people know what failed him to get command of the team members.  He was given a free hand for selection.  The more they attempt to suppress the truth, the more the controversy rages.

 On the day of Goa’s match against Punjab, Goan players mobiles did not stop ringing.  They received calls not to wish them and encourage them to give their best but to remind them that Punjab lads were hard tacklers and hence to be cautious.  Cautious they were.  Because some of them did not go for normal tackles.  A 50-50 situation for a tackle is normal in football.  Some players avoided that.  The events leading to the poor show in the National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy show that the ‘dirty-game’ was being shamelessly played.  And that, as a result of this, the good Goan players were being destroyed.

 The reason for Goa’s poor show was not that the Goan team for the Santosh Trophy was a poor, second-rate team.  It played dirty-football and paid the price for doing that.  This attitude at the Santosh Trophy brought Goan football a step closer to its destruction.  Goa hasn’t won a single title from the time the NFL culture germinated.  Goan football is being destroyed.  It is being destroyed because the Goan player is being destroyed.  It is not dying from lack of good, first-rate football players.

 Sure enough, Goa was good at football once.  It was not only because the players were good and they had potential.  But the culture was different. Today’s players still have potential.  The Goan technique is still alive and kicking.  But the player has lost its use.  His potential is being wasted. This is happening because the player has been forced, by the football mandarins to become their slave.  His mind is being destroyed.  And his self.

 When the Santosh Trophy squad was announced and some players left out on the pretext that they would need rest to recover from injuries, now, when the Santosh Trophy was in progress the ‘injured’ players were practicing with their respective teams.  A speedy recovery indeed!!!  Whom are we to believe?  The injury fakers or club officials who pronounced them injured or team doctors or the GFA?  The Goan football lovers are as much in the dark as we all are.  Let us not forget that Goan football has to be grateful for the support it gets from the general public.  The players should not only think of the money that they make but the way they play football and bring joy to those without whom football would not have survived.

 Consolatory win

 It was a consolatory win for India against the Australian cricket team.  But the Australian team has maintained its tradition of losing a match after winning the series.  Or is it a case of playing in a hurry and repenting at leisure?  At the end of the series many are gunning for Indian Captain Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy.  Whatever the controversy, it is time for Sourav Ganguly to give way to Rahul Dravid.  A captain should gracefully step down when the opposition side does not fear him as a batsman nor as a bowler.  Unfortunately, Ganguly fits into this category.  After all Rahul Dravid has proved his abilities and there is nothing else left for him to show to stake his claim for captainship.

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