NEWS
SCHEDULES
COLUMNS
PREVIOUS TOURS
OTHER SPORTS
STATISTICS
INTERVIEWS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Rediff Shopping

Shop & gift from thousands of products!   Books     Music       Apparel   Jewellery   Flowers   More..      Safe Shopping

Hyderabadi coaches set Calcutta on fire

Two Hyderabadi coaches have set this football crazy city on fire working wonders with their imaginative strategies on the green top.

Syed Nayeemuddin and Mohammed Habib, who mesmerised Indian football in the early 70s, are today the most-talked about strategists of the game.

Appointed coach of city giant East Bengal early this year after Mohan Bagan unceremoniously relieved him of his duties at the club, 'Dronacharya' Nayeemuddin, now in his fifties, led his team to victory at the just-concluded McDowell Cup without conceding a goal.

A super stopper in his era, Nayemuddin had a turbulent 1999, remaining jobless for most of the year after he had lost his job with Mohun Bagan.

The veteran took sweet revenge over his former employers when his club gave a 1-0 verdict against Bagan in the McDowell final, ending his four-year trophy drought.

Subash Bhowmik, East Bengal's coach, was given the gate as Nayeemuddin neatly settled in his shoes.

The only ''Dronacharya'' (National award for best coach) of Indian soccer, Nayeemuddin, had to groom the raw talents his club had recruited this season. Bagan's Brazilian duo Barreto-Santos were unable to pierce the defensive screen of his gold-red brigade.

Nayeem gave the club a new star in the form of Dipak Mondol, recruited from JCT this year. Mondol earned the 'Man of the Tournament' award for his compact man-marking, thanks to his coach's excellent defensive strategy. In fact, he stopped the Brazilians in their tracks in the final against Bagan giving new hope to 'swadeshi' style soccer.

Football pundits says Nayeemuddin's new job and the trophy would bring a new dimension to the future tournaments of the country.

If Nayeemuddin saw a light of life in the new millennium, there was no reason why his soccermate Mohammad Habib would lag behind.

A superlative game-maker and goal creator of yesteryears, Habib, who is often considered a thorough professional in his discipline, suddenly found himself to be a king-maker.

Mohammedan Sporting's sagging image as one of the 'Big Three of Calcutta Maidan' got a boost after Habib took over as the team's coach early this year, prematurely leaving his job with Tata Football Academy.

The club had slipped to the bottom of the super division league table last year and even failed to play the National League Championhips. Things turned around for the club after Habib came as coach.

After a disastrous 0-2 start against East Bengal, Md Sporting came back in the tournament with a 4-1 win over FCI, Abdul Khalique scoring a hat-trick. Habib's boys also troubled East Bengal in the first 80 minutes of their goalless match.

In their semi-finals, Md Sporting came back from the dead, down 3-1 at one point, to level at 3-3, before the mercurial Barreto scored the golden goal in extra time as Bagan huffed and puffed into the finals.

Mohameddans were defeated but hardly disgraced with Nazimul Haquye scoring a hat-trick, sending a caution in rival ranks for the rest of the season. This is largely tipped as Habib's legacy.

Two hat-tricks in three matches, that too for the team that was defeated in the semis, earned them the new title ''banana skin'' in domestic soccer and none other than Habib deserved the glory.

It was largely because of these topsy turvy matches and the sudden urge of the top teams to fight it out that brought a handsome crowd of over 50,000 to the finals for first time since early last year, even though the fever of the 'Euro 2000' had hardly died down.

UNI