Bob Houghton

New Delhi: National coach Bob Houghton on Monday said there were too many pockets of personal interest in Indian football which had proved a hindrance to the development of a strong national team.

Talking to reporters here, the British coach admitted that Indian football hadn’t progressed since he took over as the national coach last June.

“We haven’t progressed at all. Not much could be done last year as the senior national team played only three matches,” he said.

Houghton squarely blamed the domestic calendar for poor show. “The calendar is not conducive at all. We have to sort it out. It doesn’t allow sufficient time for the national team. The last time the national team got together was in October for the match against Japan. You don’t progress if you don’t play,” he remarked.

The national coach made it clear that he was against releasing national players for all tournaments except Federation Cup and National Football League. All other meets, he felt, should take into consideration the national team’s interest.

“It is always desirable to have players in the camp 14 days in advance before an international match,” Houghton said. “Last year, eight footballers had to be released for playing the Calcutta league just six days before the game against Saudi Arabia. Such things don’t happen anywhere in the world,” the national coach said.

The Calcutta Football League (CFL), however, might suffer badly this season as a dozen of its top players would be busy in the national camp for the ONGC Cup camp beginning in Gurgaon in the last week of June.

After a two-week camp, the squad would go to Portugal to play a few preparatory matches. On returning, the players will go back to the camp and remain there till the ONGC Cup, which will be played from the third week of August.

According to Houghton, the national players were playing too many matches in a season.

“That could be one of the reasons why so many of them got injured. Top players like Mahesh Gawali, K Ajayan, Climax Lawrence or Deepak Mondal could hardly be used for national duty last season,” he lamented.

Players for camp

Goalkeepers: Sandeep Nandy, Subhasis Roy Chowdhury, Arindam Bhattacharya and Subrata Paul Defenders: Surkumar Singh, Mahesh Gawali, Deepak Mondal, Samir Naik, Sanjiv Maria, NS Manju, Debabrata Roy and Anupam Sarkar (subject to fitness) Midfielders: Syed Rahim Nabi, K Ajayan, Climax Lawrence, NP Pradeep, Clifford Miranda, Steven Dias, Mahrajuddin Wadoo, Renedy Singh, Bungo Singh, Gourmangi Singh and Chandam Chitrasen (subject to fitness) Forwards: Bhaichung Bhutia, Sunil Chhetri, Abhishek Yadav, Manjit Singh, Tarif Ahmed and Anthony Pereira.