I'm very impressed, Indian football is similar to Australian football: Mumbai City FC head coach Petr Kratky

Mumbai City FC head coach Petr Kratky has heaped praise on Indian football and the potential of the players competing in the Indian Super League (ISL).

Speaking recently to Firstpost, the former Melbourne City FC assistant and youth development (academy) coach opened up about the Indian footballing system, drawing comparisons to Australian football.

He said:

"Yeah, look, I’m very impressed, to be honest. It’s very, very similar to Australia and the only difference is some rules when you can’t play all six foreigners. So I have to get my head around it. But in terms of quality, the foreigners and even local Indian players, especially in Mumbai, are very good.

"They have potential, they have room for improvement, which makes me excited about the work here. We have players in the national team. We have six players with the national team."

The 42-year-old is in his first-ever stint as the head coach of a club in his professional career, having replaced Des Buckingham as the boss of the defending ISL League Shield winners. He went on to add:

"The more you play, the better you get, but with our system and in our way. Indian football has massive potential and I believe if we do good jobs for years and years in development and help the young players, there will be few Indian players in a period of five or 10 years, knocking on the door in the big competitions, like in Australia. So we just need to do a good job and support the young players."

I’m here to support young Indian players because my background is in junior development: Petr Kratky

When asked about his focus on developing young Indian players in the Mumbai City FC squad, an optimistic Petr Kratky stated:

"Yeah, we want to work with young Indian players and give them the opportunities. But we also have to balance it because we need to perform. We are in a club where we want to win trophies.

"If they deserve it, work hard, have good character and attitude, the opportunity will come. I’m not afraid to play young players. I’m here to support them, because my background, it’s in junior development."

Kratky also talked about reaching out to the Indian Men's Football Team's head coach Igor Stimac to extend his support for the development of Indian players if required. On this, he said:

"I spoke with the national team coach as well, a little bit about this. I said, if he needs any support, we are here to support the Indian players as much as we can. But again, it needs to be a balance of how we want to perform. We want to win and also improve players."

Although replacing a highly successful Des Buckingham midway through a season isn't an easy task, Petr Kratky has started his tenure at Mumbai City FC on a good note so far. He will be hoping that his team maintains the momentum going into the second half of the 2023-24 ISL season. The Islanders are currently in the fourth spot on the table with 22 points in 11 matches.