Players lacked desire against Bangladesh: AIFF’s national team director

Kolkata: India lacked desire in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifier against Bangladesh, said national football team director Subrata Paul. The former international has also listed team spirit among the challenges faced by the senior men’s team after the 0-0 draw in Shillong on March 25. Subrata Paul. (Facebook)

The minutes of a technical committee meeting on April 17 states that Paul, a former India No. 1 and Arjuna award winner in 2016, “highlighted several key challenges faced by the Senior National Team (sic). These included issues related to Player’s attitude (sic), patriotism and overall team spirit.” HT has seen the minutes.

Paul should explain why he said this, said Bhaichung Bhutia, an executive committee member of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), over the phone from Gangtok. “And he should name the players who he felt had not given their best so that they are not chosen anymore,” said Bhutia, Paul’s India captain for five years during which the team won two Nehru Cup titles, the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup and qualified to the 2011 Asian Cup.

On Friday, Paul, 38, did referencing Bhutia and a host of his former India teammates while doing so. “I missed the desire that I saw in so many of my seniors and contemporaries such as Bhaichung bhai, Climax Lawrence, Sameer Naik, Deepak Mondal to name a few. The desire to play for the national team overrode everything including injuries,” Paul told HT, speaking in Bangla.

“It is my responsibility as national team director to point that out. If this makes me unpopular, so be it,” he said.

The qualifier against Bangladesh was Paul’s first official match after being appointed in February. Before that, India won a friendly against Maldives 3-0. “Even there, the performance was not what was expected and I pointed that out to the technical committee,” he said.

About team spirit, he said: “This is a team that has some players with a lot of experience and some with little. It is a team in transition and maybe that is why it did not gel.”

Paul said he did not know how the technical committee minutes were phrased. He said he did not speak about players’ patriotism.

Going into the match, India were ranked 126 and Bangladesh 185. At the post-match press conference, India head coach Manolo Marquez said the performance was “very, very poor”. Maybe this is the reality of Indian football, the Spaniard had said. Since his first match (in September 2024), Marquez said he had felt in every training session and in matches the players had improved. “Today, I felt we took two, three steps back.”

Paul played 67 matches for India between 2007 and 2017 and was adjudged best goalkeeper in the 2007 Nehru Cup. It was his save in the sudden death shootout that helped India retain the title in 2009. In the 2011 Asian Cup match against South Korea, Paul was given the nickname “Spiderman” for his saves that kept the margin of defeat down to 1-4. He played the AFC Challenge Cup semi-final, a 1-0 win against Myanmar, with a dislocated finger leading to permanent damage.

Since the Bangladesh tie, India have lost to 0-2 Thailand in a friendly and 0-1 to Hong Kong in another Asian Cup qualifier.

Email error

An email from Paul on June 24 stating that a coach has to be appointed for the senior men’s team led to speculation that Marquez had stepped down as he is reported to have wanted to. It also contradicted AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey’s comment that the executive committee, scheduled to meet on July 2, will discuss the head coach’s future.

“A wrong email was sent out,” said Paul. “We will discuss Manolo’s performance at the executive committee meeting, not the appointment of a new coach. Manolo continues to be India’s head coach.”

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