Malé: Indian Senior Men’s team Head Coach Igor Stimac asked the fans to hold their calm over the development of the Indian football team as progresses do not happen over night.
“The media, the fans want everything to change quickly but national team coach can’t buy players so we have to follow a process. In that process we have to suffer, we have to go through this period,” the Croatian said.
India won the SAFF CHAMPIONSHIP 2021 beating Nepal 3-1 in the final, while India had a very sloppy start to the campaign they picked up the pace with wins against Nepal and Maldives , finally finding themselves in the climax of the tournament.
“The first two games were bad only because of results,” Stimac told reporters during an online press conference. “There was no difference in approach, there was no big difference in statistics. There were enough shots on goal, enough creation, enough movement, enough energy on the pitch. But sometimes you don’t win. There was a lot of results pressure on our shoulders but we handled it well.”
Winning the tournament for a record eighth time , Indian has been a favourite to win the championship , even Stimac did not think of the win as something huge but he was optimistic about the dominant display of football.
Stimac added: “Even I don’t consider this a special success because when India goes to SAFF (Championship), they’re expected to win. But we demonstrated that we were very dominant in this competition and we can progress this way.”
Stimac also pointed out the fact that India didn’t have enough preparation time before the competition and that led to the slow start.
“Nepal prepared for this competition for two and half months and deservedly reached the final,” Stimac said. “We didn’t have that and it was impossible to do better in this situation. I am delighted for the players because they worked very hard in very difficult circumstances and the feeling (of victory) is special for them.”
With people getting impatient of losses and draws, Stimac claimed that people need to keep their calm and trust the process.
“When I took the job two and half years ago, we started reconstructing the game from the very first day because we opted for more technical football, more ball possession football, we chose more technical players. So the technical committee who mostly consists of ex-players knew how much we would have to suffer in this process. I’m grateful for their support,” he added.
