Luis Norton de Matos, coach of the India Under-17 team, which participated in the FIFA U-17 World Cup in October last year at home, expressed his unhappiness with his talented goalkeeper Dheeraj Singh quitting the Indian Arrows team and instead opting to give trials for various clubs in Europe. Matos is of the opinion that the young Manipuri lad, who had massively impressed all with his goalkeeping abilities, should have played more matches against top-level Indian teams before trying his hand at foreign clubs. The Portuguese felt that he had been ill advised as he would be losing on precious match experience and, instead, spending that time training with a foreign club instead. Dheeraj had recently decided not to sign a three-year contract with AIFF.
“Players are surrounded by people—agents, managers—many who don't know the process of development of players. I think the best [thing] for Dheeraj was to play I-League, and after that take trials in Europe. It's different when you have 10-12 games behind you and then sign for a professional club. It is not the case with Dheeraj—he hasn't signed with a club and he cannot play in Europe till next September. He is not yet 18, and he will be there for seven months without competition and only training.”
When asked how badly will he miss the young goalkeeper in the remaining matches of the ongoing I league, Matos said, “For me it's like not having him around for 2-3 months due to injury.” Prabhsukhan Singh Gill will be the replacement for Dheeraj.
Speaking about the big I-League match for his Indian Arrows team coming up on Jan 2 in the capital against Kingfisher East Bengal, the coach sounded both optimistic and wary. His team had impressed all and won hearts in their previous encounter of the tournament against Kolkata giants Mohun Bagan by holding them to a 1-1 draw. There is no doubt that both Bagan and East Bengal are the two biggest teams of the tournament. However, with close scheduling, Norton is forced to go with as many as five changes against EB as players haven't had time to recover fully after their last match.
“The team gave a very good result against Mohun Bagan in Kolkata. They have shown the strength to play at a higher level. It was a very big lesson of collective play.
“East Bengal have a very clever coach (Khaled Jameel) who is extremely well organised. They have 3-5 players who are very difficult to stop. I expect a very hard game for us. We have to play 5-6 different players tomorrow from the team that took on Mohun Bagan. Over 50 per cent of the team will be different . We have a lot of closely scheduled games,” said Matos.
East Bengal are currently leading the points table, but are not taking the developmental team of the AIFF, currently placed seventh in the competition, lightly either. “The Indian Arrows are playing good football, ranging from the goalkeepers to the forwards. There is a lot of confidence and they play as a unit on the field. It is evident and they are hungry and we are not taking them lightly,” Jameel said on the eve of the match.
