“You need to have the confidence of the people you work for” - Arthur Papas Interview Part Two

“The deciding factor of my next move is really simple. It will be to the place where I feel that I have the most support, believe in the project and freedom to balance my professional and personal ambitions. Professionally you need to have the confidence of the people you work for and know that they really want you there and are desperate to have you there.”

Those were the words of Arthur Papas when asked about his next move. Saturday’s I-League game against Pune FC will be Pailan Arrows’ final game of the season and with the Australian coach’s contract expiring at the end of the campaign, question marks remain about his future.

The young Aussie tactician has enhanced his coaching credentials this season and remarkably has been linked with every top I-League club in the country in such a short space of time, especially after he hinted a few months back that he would leave Arrows at the end of the season.

The AIFF have publicly stated they are keen on giving him a role to head various age group teams; but while both jobs have their plus points, the deciding factor remains the same although he admits to maintaining a strong admiration for AIFF Technical Director Rob Baan.

“Both are attractive but the main thing that it comes down to is having full support from the organisation that is employing you, believing in a mutual vision and wanting to improve standards. You have to have that feeling that they are really happy with your work and will do what they have to keep you within reason of course.

“I guess what’s been frustrating is that you have a youth team in a senior league and people are expecting you to be winning all the time and asking you questions about why you aren’t winning all the time, for me this is very far from being logical for a large portion of the time. If we had four foreigners and more than 15 crore as our budget then I should be justifying that question but when I have a youth team every single week and there are questions why a youth player is not good without having a proper education of what a youth development programme is all about, that has been really frustrating,” he told Sportskeeda.

It took Arrows 24 games to register their first win in the I-League last season; but this term under Papas, they won their first game against Mumbai FC and were on a nine-game unbeaten run in all competitions at the start of the season.

Consistency has been difficult to achieve of course, but Papas doesn’t put that down to lack of motivation. The Australian pointed out that the telling factor was the luxury that most clubs had to bring in new foreigners in the middle of the season and that is why they moved up the table while Arrows dropped to the bottom half.

“The teams that were close to the bottom at the halfway point of the season signed new players and new foreigners and improved in the second half. If you look at Salgaocar, Sporting Goa, & Shilling Lajong they almost completely changed their foreign players and even United Sikkim did the same thing but without the results in the end.

“Lack of consistency down to lack of experience”

“We kept the same squad from first to last day and even when we brought in Semilen (Doungel) we had to release Prathamesh (Maulingkar). They are not used to playing 26 to 35 senior matches in a year so the lack of consistency is down to lack of experience and not motivation. Overall, there was probably two to three games where I wasn’t satisfied over the course of the season and this is because the performance was lacking. Recently I was reflecting on the season with my assistant Aaron Symons and we could only find three games where we felt we were unable to control the match.

“75 percent of goals in the I-League are scored by foreigners and obviously we didn’t have any, this is a critical factor when evaluating your results. Still we have fulfilled our objectives both in performance due to the style of play we received recognition for and also results as we have scored more goals, accumulated more points and tripled our wins from last year,” Papas reflected.

According to Papas, The defeat to Prayag United last month was his team’s worst performance. So which was the best?

“The (2-0) win over Dempo was our best performance of the season because we executed our plan perfectly and were playing against strong opposition. A game like that, showed that the new generation of Indian footballers have the ability to play a high tempo, pro-active and tactically astute game” he stated.

When asked to pick the positive aspects of this season’s I-League, Papas talked about the tactical improvement of some teams since the start of the campaign, but there were a lot more negatives in his assessment.

“One thing that continually disappointed me is lot of the time wasting that goes on. It’s a poor reflection on the league because as a fan you want to turn it off seeing the same players falling over because they are ahead by one goal. I kept telling my players that it is embarrassing to see things like this and takes away the act of sportsmanship which we all should pride ourselves upon.

“Then there are the kickoff timings of course. When we play at 2pm I feel sorry for my players because it’s not easy to ask them to push and press. If it’s going to be a top league then the package has to be impressive for the supporter. At the moment it is not if you are honest about it. The quality of the facilities, stadiums, dressing rooms has to be lifted and you are not going play in the big competitions of the AFC if it doesn’t change. I think it’s being addressed and I hope it’s quickened up.

Reduce the number of foreigners

“Lastly, if India wants to improve on an international level there needs to be a review of the amount of foreigners that can be signed per team and especially the pedigree of the foreigner. It is glaringly obvious that there is a shortage of international standard forwards and central defenders currently and this is because these positions in the league are occupied by foreigners. Therefore, if we reduce the foreign spots to two for a period of time then there would be no choice but for teams to start playing Indian players in these positions as well and then the national team can prosper in the long term,” he opined.

We also asked for his opinion about that teams that impressed him the most in his first-ever season in Indian football.

“For a large portion of the season, I think East Bengal were the team that impressed everyone because they were so defensively sound and you could see that the team had matured together and had evolved over the space of three years. Also when the likes of Beto were on song Churchill Brothers have also been good to watch. Lastly, I think Pune have been outstanding and the job that Derrick and his staff have completed should not be underestimated,” Papas said.

The Australian has been instrumental in the development of several youngsters at India Under-22s and Arrows but who are his players (foreign and Indian) of the season from the 2012-13 I-League?

“Before Bilal (Najjarin) left, I thought he was very crucial for Churchill. He was very composed on the ball and added a lot of leadership. There was a period when after he left that Churchill really felt that and then steadied a bit. I am pretty certain that if he would have stayed, the title race would have been decided much earlier.

East Bengal’s Roy Keane?

“Among Indians, I am a big fan of Mehtab Hossain. He is so critical to the way East Bengal operates. He has good attitude, works hard, and is very tidy on the ball. At times you hear complaints about his physical approach but I don’t have any problems with this side of his game because for example Roy Keane was the same as well and he was so important for Manchester United. So sometimes when Mehtab needs to be physical he has got that in his game,” Papas commented.

All Photo Credits: AIFF Media