After all what matters the most in football is the result. Until embracing success, you can not ensure the rest about the development. It’s the lack of positive results that has shadowed the developments in domestic football in Nepal. Nepali football has been unable to upgrade its standard in the international level despite spending a lot of money.
In fact there has been a drastic change in the lifestyle and earning of professional players. The concern however is the inability to catch up same pace in the field and standard of football. It is high time we diagnose this problem and implement effective programs to cure that.
Having played football for over a decade and than spent two decades as a coach, at present, I am dogged by the same concern as well. However, I am least bothered about the off the field politics and administrative hassles because I am a technical person. The key to improve Nepali football standard is to focus on the technical aspect. That can produce results which is the yardstick of football standard.
The concern of football administration should be to create a favorable football environment for all the sides related to the game. Politics should be done in football for the cause of football and not for power. From this viewpoint, administration comes next to football itself.
Football is the common language across the globe and arguable the most popular game. The beautiful game is loved for its simplicity off the field. However, in the field it is a difficult art that is played not only with the body but with the brain. When the players' physicality backs up the mental strategy of the coach, it produces the best result.
Football is a team game with ample of ground for players to show their individual skills. That's why every team loves to boast skilled individuals in the setup. It is essential for a standard team and only a good team can produce good results.
From the technical point of view, fitness, technique, tactics and psychology are the key aspects in football. Every potential player should search for the perfect combination of these four things in himself. Nepal football has always suffered from the lack of physical fitness. Their build-up or the physique is the weaker aspect.
Our players have good endurance but not strength and speed. In a country where sports has never been give due priority, it might be impossible to fulfill all the needs. We may not be able to provide diet to every player as suggested by nutritionists. But there are still many things we can do many things with our limited resources and improve on the above mentioned four aspects. Eating habit makes a big impact in the overall fitness of the individual. At least we can manage balanced diet for them. Even the individuals can maintain a disciplined life. They can build up strength with that. As for speed, it the genes determine it. Some are bestowed with fast fibers while some languish with comparatively slow fiber in the muscles.
For example, no matter how hard he tries, Ananta Thapa cannot step up his pace. Players like him should concentrate on playing more mind game. But Ju Manu Rai is a speed player. He should not be playing football too much with his mind but play with his strength of speed. Some of these factors in human physique cannot be changed so we should pay due attention in the early phase.
Since it is a mind game, there is no room for dull people in football. Normally, when a person is physically tired, than the brain demands rest. But in football no matter how tired you are your brain must function as promptly as earlier. So, only extraordinary people can survive in football. A player should read the mind of 21 players, 1o teammates and 11 opponents, in every match.
Most of players are weak in ball receiving as well as realizing. This problem in the basics of football speaks of the fact that our players lack proper coaching while they are young. Even the products of academies are not perfect in this regard.
Players need perfect coaching in two stages of their career. The basic techniques are better learnt at the beginning phase when the payer is raw and young. It is very difficult to basics after a player crosses the first stage. Throughout the career the player will play with the same technique he learns in the beginning. The first coach should mould the player in such a way that tomorrow he can play in every condition and under any coach.
Even in the topmost level of professional football, may be the national team, there should be a perfect coach who understands every player's physical as well as mental strengths and weaknesses. He should be equally good and constructing strategy that suits the team. Producing players is not the most difficult task but for a coach the most difficult task is to set proper strategy and make the players execute it in the field. Every coach has a different pattern. But the best is the one who can study the opponent's game and forge a counterattack strategy to foil it.
