How to fix Indian Football with Indian Origin Wales coach Neil Taylor

In recent years the tiny country of Wales with a population of only 3 milion has shocked many in the football World by reaching the World Cup finals in Qatar as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Euros in 2016. So how can this small nation make it to the biggest show on earth but India can't? Today on the show former Wrexham, Swansea and Wales international full back Neil Taylor reveals the blueprint for Welsh success. He also discusses his Indian family and summers spent in Kolkata as a child.

Transcript

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Hello, I'm Joe Morrison and welcome to Chai Football. In the studio with me is the wonderfully opinionated journalist, especially about football, and that is Shruti Nair.  Each week, we bring you a no holds barred look at what's going on in the world of Indian football, along with regular invited guests from both the football landscape as well as famous fans of football from the subcontinent and beyond. 

This week on chai football.  Yeah. My mother's Indian. So Cook Hunter, she's from, yeah. I went a lot as a kid, started to pick up the language and then leave and then picked up the swear words as a kid. He's the cricket, more of the cricket background than the the Indian mom, which is Oh wow, okay. Yeah. But they're both into it.

So obviously when England played India it was always fun in our house. The commercial side of stuff is massive now. Sponsorships, tiktoks on the front of a, of a national league.  You know, that just wouldn't happen. Indy needs a hero. It needs somebody to leave and do really, really well. But in order to do that, you're probably going to have to wait 10 years. 

Who's sponsoring this? It's a very, it's a very low budget podcast usually. There's never any food. There's just water. So, you know, I brought these this morning because I hadn't had my breakfast. So I thought I'll get something for you guys because I'm a generous person. And I went to this Costa Coffee in Jumeirah and it's got a drive thru. 

So there's a person sitting at the drive thru window, uh, speaking into the microphone making their order. Now the drive thru is right behind some residential houses and the voice box of the person taking the order was so loud. If I, and this place is open 24 hours, if I heard at 3 a. m. like,  Hi ma'am, sir.

What? What? What? Pastel de nata? Like, I'd be furious. There's a house right behind where the, the, the Oh really? I know which one you mean actually. In, uh, just over the road. I know which one you mean. Alright, for the first time ever, we're doing this on a Tuesday. So welcome to Chai Tuesday on a Tuesday. Will this go up on a Tuesday?

Nope. You never know. You never know. It's never going up on a Tuesday. It's never going up on a Tuesday. It's an Indian thing.  See, that's what I said. I mean, there's a reason he mentioned the mentality. Less than 10 seconds. I know. Never on time. Never on time. It's an Indian thing. That's why Chai Tuesday never goes on a Tuesday.

You are broadcasting to the Indians right now. 1. 4 billion of us. Your Twitter is going to be flooded.  It's authentic. It never, it's never on time. That's the whole point of Chai Tuesday not being on a Tuesday. But we are filming it on a Tuesday this week. So Hello, I am Shruti. This is my co host, Joe. Today, you're my co host today.

Yeah. All right then. And we have Neil Taylor in the studio. Welcome, Neil. And thank you for joining us here on Chai Tuesday. No problem. Thank you for having me. I thought it was going to be a confetti gun or something.  The way you announced it then I was like, I was having to check my shoulder, you know. 

We'll do that in the post production.  We'll get that in. Right. And Barney wedding fireworks.  So what brings you here? To our podcast here today. Well Joe to start with  Yeah, we've we've chatted many times on Indian football  And he's got my taken a few times and of course, I've heard his take as I'm sure 1.

4 billion Indians have Um, a lot of the times and I think it's yeah, he invited me on to chat football. First of all, like my career, I think, and, um, and then to talk about Indian football and, and what can happen with it really. So I think I just, I think I can give my experiences of, of what I think high performance and high level looks like both at club and national level and how it can 100% be a proven model to work in India as well.

Um, but I also understand the, the obstacles that might be in the way sometimes, but yeah, so to come and chat all them things, really. Yeah, we'll, we'll get into it, but before we get into your role in Indian football and what you plan on doing there back in India, um, walk us through your journey, right? I mean, there's a lot you've done in Wales.

Is there a lot you've done in the UK? Just, just a quick nutshell of your career so far. Was your, was your Your mother that's Indian, or your father that's Indian? Yeah, no, my mother's Indian. Yeah, my mother's Indian, so Kolkata she's from. Um, she Have you been? Yes, yes, many times. Yeah, I went a lot as a kid.

Um, and I got family in Delhi as well. And, yeah, so a lot of times as a kid I would spend probably a month to six weeks. Start to pick up the language and then leave and then lose it again a little bit. But, yeah, um Picked up the swear words as a kid, uh, as you can imagine, playing badminton out the front and stuff like that, you know, with all the kids, I picked them up, but I think, um What is the best Indian swear word?

Depends, I mean, you were in Kolkata, so was it, um, uh, was it Bengali that you learned? Yeah, I mean, are we starting the podcast on this, or are we just gonna start swearing? Yeah, yeah, yeah! We're gonna start swearing right away! Yeah, no, go for it! No, but I mean, no, honestly, I think it was, um What are these things, pinatas, or what are they called?

Pastel de natas, are they? Pastel de natas. Yeah. Pinatas are the things you hit, right? At kids, at kids, at kids parties.  I definitely wouldn't eat them.  You're not coming to my kids parties, by the way, anyway. 

Um, so I think Yeah, basically. Yeah. A lot. A lot of trips as a kid. Um, and then once my football career started at 16, very difficult then to go, um, to come over to India, especially in the month of June and July when the weather's not great either. So, uh, yeah, monsoon time. So, but I did, I did go over in 2012 and started. 

Working with the police and an initiative in Kolkata between the police and football. Okay. Um, so that was great. Yeah, it was good. Oh, was this gold? Yes. Ah, right. Yeah, so it was, um, that initiative was, was kicking off and they wanted to partnership a little bit. And so I went over and spent a bit of time and understood it.

So I went to the schools and then went to watch the football, played in the monsoons with the kids and, and it was great. Um, and it was a fantastic initiative and, and then, you know, that was back in 2012. And then again, had my career and.  And then finished and now I'm here and I'm probably a little bit closer.

Well, I'm definitely closer than I've ever been to India. Now being out here, um, as a manager. Sorry to interrupt it. Is that not the greatest feeling ever playing football in the rain? Not just rain, but warm rain. Uh, yeah, yes. I think it depends if I was playing a proper, proper game, I think I'd probably like it to be a little bit cooler.

Um, but yeah, rain over wind all day when it comes to football.  Rain over wind all day, yeah, but it was good. It was good, good fun. Yeah, so when did your parents move to, uh, Wales? So it was my mum. My mum got a job that, uh, made her travel. Um, I think she worked at BA for a little while as well, a little bit.

Um, so she ended up meeting my dad in London on her travels. She's from Kent. Ironically, big, we're a big sporting family. We're one of them families where sport is on the TV. Constantly, unless EastEnders is on 7 to laugh 7 with our mum. Um, but sport was always on. Mum was big in sport, she was a sprinter, loved badminton.

All sports, shouts at the TV type mum.  Would you say your mother was more of the sporting influence? No, well this is, this is the interesting thing. So my dad used to, he was a leg spinner for Kent actually. Um, in his young, very young years. Um, so he's from Kent, so he's English. Um, so he's the cricket, more of the cricket background than the Indian mum, which is, yeah, but they're both into it.

So obviously when England played India, it was always fun in our house for the cricket. Um, and yeah, you always get asked who you support and I try and stay, tried to stay neutral, but of course it was India really, cause I'm Welsh. Um, but yeah, I think it's, it was a massive sporting background. Um, and then my dad took a job in Wales before I was born.

Um, he was into computer programming back then, so he got offered a job. Um, and yeah, that's where I, then I come into the equation. So I was born in Wales, um, and was there for 27 years really because I played for Wrexham Um, then I played for Swansea. So I was at two clubs in Wales as well Obviously everybody knows about Wrexham now because of Ryan Gosling because of everything.

Yeah  Sorry, Ryan Reynolds. Yeah, not Ryan Gosling. Yeah, get your Ryan's right? Yeah. Um, what do you think about that?  Yeah, great as a model, as a, I mean, it's obviously it's ignited the town. Hasn't it? Um, but how do you feel about, uh, cause there's a lot of marketing and PR and hype in it as well. What do you think about that?

Well, I think for me, and I think we'll probably talk on the Indian stuff in a minute is they just changed the narrative of the town. They came in and just give it a fresh impetus. So I was there when the club went into administration. I was a young 18 year old, 19 year old. Um, I was asked to be captain of the club at 19, 20.

Um, so I capped in a few games under Dean Saunders, um, as the manager.  Yeah, and it was a really, really, really tough time for the club. The ownership went through many different hands, um, went into administration, and,  And then it stayed there for 12 years, 12, 13 years. And then these guys have come in, picked it because it's Uh, yes, yes, early in their tenure.

Um, not recently. And was there a buzz? There was a buzz, and first of all, it was full. Uh, it wasn't full for many years, the racecourse. What's the capacity of the racecourse? Well, they've changed it now, so they've done, they've done the cop up. Um, so I don't know what the capacity will be now, but at the time when I first started playing, I think it was up in around 14, 15.

Um, But they demolished the cop and they've redone it now. And I think they plan to do more, but they just changed the narrative. They just, and then when they talked about the documentary, everyone, Oh God, right. There's one of them. They're going to be in and out in two, three years, make a documentary for Amazon or Netflix, and then that's going to be it. 

Um, but they haven't. They're actually in it for the long run. They picked Wrexham because it's the third oldest football club in the world. But it's so random for Ryan Reynolds to be involved as well, right? He has no Welsh roots. He's just randomly picked up. Yeah, so I think what you'll find with a lot of Americans at the minute, they're investing in football.

Yeah, if you look at Burnley Football Club, they've got a couple of NFL people, Birmingham City. Um, why?  Why do you think they're doing that? I think it's a good model. I think it's a really good model. I think if you If you essentially can drive a football club. So Wrexham now if they sold it Would be worth may way more than what they've they put into it All right So I think in terms of that model you look at what the glaze has done with man united And you know, it's been a catastrophe in terms of on the pitch probably But if you was to talk about their model And what they've done off the pitch commercially They'll sell the club for more than they bought it for probably.

So because it's not a closed ecosystem like, uh, NBA is or, uh, American football is, if you're not buying a franchise, you can actually take something that's worth this. And take it up to a value of that. Exactly. You can. Yeah. So you got to look for a sleeping giant, essentially. That's what Wrexham was.

Third oldest football club, a big club. Um, the only one in that whole region as well of North Wales. Um, and, and they've just got it and run with it. Oldest, you've got the stories as well. It's the oldest international football stadium in the world. Um, so all them little stories, I think,  brought it together.

There are Desi's watching this who would not, first of all, probably never heard of Wrexham as a football club. And secondly, wouldn't have a clue where it was. Prior to the Ryan Reynolds. And who's the partner? I can never remember the partner. Rob McElhenney? Yeah, Rob McElhenney. McElhenney? Wouldn't have a clue before they took over.

No, 100%. It just goes to show you. Yeah, 100%. The power of it. 100%. And I even know, I know some, some YouTube football clubs back in the UK that are in the non leagues. YouTube football clubs? YouTube football clubs. So they're fully funded by YouTube and the advertising and all the training sessions go out, all the content, all the games.

And it's Sunday League, essentially. But. They're gaining traction. They're now starting to look at building their own training grounds and doing this and doing that. All off, all off that. So the commercial side of stuff is massive now. Sponsorships, TikToks on the front of a national league team, you know, that just wouldn't happen.

So what are we doing with this? What are we doing with this? Now that we have a platform, what are we doing with this? Bakery. Oh, you'll have piñatas hanging. Let's start beating the piñatas next episode. But also the injuries, the, the whiskey.  Oh, did you bring it? I didn't, it's over. It's that delicious. I mean, that's, that's the advertisement for it.

So Indri, to give you context, is the world's best whiskey and it's from India and it's on me saying it. It was in one of those polls, world's best whiskey. That's what it's called. The poll is called that. An Indian poll? No, a global poll. No, it was a poll in India. No, it wasn't. Can we, can we pull it? We did this last episode.

I've never seen this whiskey. I've never heard of it. And I do like single malt whiskey. Have you tried it? No. Indri? No. Are you a whiskey drinker?  I can have it, yeah.  What's your tipple? Wine, beer or spirits? Yeah, no, spirits. I came off beer a long time ago when I was playing football.  I went through the silly stage of cider.

Um, when I was very young,  when I was very young and then realize it doesn't really go well with football. Diamond white. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or anything like that. Yeah. So yeah, basically I, yeah. Spirits is all on my line. Every week, Shruti's been promising, um, to bring in this single malt whiskey called, uh, Indira.

I haven't been promising. I've just said that it's really nice. And you brought, and she's just been back to India? I have. And, uh, returned. And I brought it back with me. And it is, where is it? And then there was a party. Which I invited you for, you didn't make it. So you drank all the gift? You drank the gift?

It was just there, it's irresistible. In fairness, that's probably one of the best advertisers. In fact, we can't have it here. Because it's all been drank. You drank the gift.  Anyway.  Carry on.  What were we talking about before Whiskeyism? Yeah, my mum and dad, I think, we were on. Yeah, somehow.  That probably does relate somehow.

Um, but yeah, so, yeah, so I was in Wales, so then yeah, I'd make trips back to India as a kid a lot. Um, unfortunately my recent trip to Kolkata was for a funeral, but Yeah, that was the last time I was there in 2000 and I want to say 18. Um, and then I was over in Goa with the family for a holiday last year.

Now we're closer. So I want to get over a lot more as much as I can. And the kids keep asking as well, since we've been to keep going back. So they're big fans of South India. So I need to take them North as well. Um, but yeah, so that, that, that's my background obviously. So I'm,  I'm half Indian. I'm 50 percent Indian.

So, um, in terms of this, when I speak to Joe about it, like obviously I've,  I probably have the most premier league appearances of anybody with an international, with a, with an Indian,  an Indian background. Um, so yeah, we want to talk Indian football basically. And I think, were you the only Indian in the club that you were in?

So as yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think nobody of Indian origin ever, like,  So there's only two  I know of, you and Chops, uh, you and Michael Chopra, that are for Premier League, is there any others that I can think of?  Um, not directly Indian, there's Zesh Rahman and people like that, people of different descents, um, locally in Asia, that have played a lot of games, um, In the area of India.

No, not enough. Was that a little different for you then? Like, did, uh, especially when you were getting in. Once you established yourself, of course, it was different. Uh, but when you were getting in, was there, were you looked at a little differently? No, listen, I mean, we can, uh, this is a podcast, it's a podcast in itself.

But I think, um, no, I didn't find it that way. I've been part of, um, a scheme by the PFA actually. An AIM scheme. Mm-Hmm. . Um, which is an Asian inclusion mentoring scheme. Okay. Um, so I started that towards the end of my career. Um, and basically we started having talent ID days for Asians in the uk. Okay. Um, the biggest thing was educating parents, to be honest.

Yeah. So it was educating parents, a lot of the teams. So I played Ster Villa, it was one of my last clubs. Yeah. Um, a big South Asian community in Birmingham. Um, and anytime we came up against.  the whole team would be Asian, the coach would be Asian, um, all the parents are obviously Asian. And it was just a question of whether  I was asking them, can you step out of your comfort zone?

You know? And I spoke to a few parents about it. I said, how do you feel about it? And they were like, well, no, you know, we take them to academies and it's dominated by, um,  African players or European players or obviously white players being in the UK. So we, we, we invited them in. So we went to Arsenal's Academy and they put in our talent ID on Aston Villa did the same.

Leicester City did the same and we brought all the parents in and let them see what academies are and the level of coaching. And there was Halal food provided for people and different types of coaches were there, all the physios that work at the club that might be Asian were there or the doctors that were Asian might be there or the coaches in the academy that are Asian.

Had them all there for a day. And, um,  it was fantastic. I can remember speaking to a father of a young Sikh boy, and he, he was very talented. And I said, how old is he? He said, he's 12. So does he ever been in academy? Uh, and he said, no.  And he said, I just don't feel like it's the right thing for him to go into academy and then possibly get released down the line, unlock his confidence.

He was clearly too good for local football. Um, so do you think it was a cultural thing? Yeah, it's a cultural thing, but from the parents as in they wanted him to be, I don't know, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. So all of that stuff, what we found in the UK doing the aim scheme, which is supporting all the Asians in lower football, all the way through is, you know, It's learned behavior.

It's all learned behavior. You know, we asked the kids that who do you go out and play out with on the street and obviously in Asian communities. And so it's all learned behavior. Um, where I grew up, I grew up in a small village in North Wales where it's predominantly white. So my learned behavior was Well, it's fine.

You know, I don't, I don't see anything different. And then when I wanted to play for Man City at the age of seven, I then started to come across inner city kids who were black and Asian and Pakistani and all different backgrounds, hearing different accents, all these different things that kids need to be exposed to wasn't happening because of this learned behavior of we need to keep ourselves to ourselves and stay in our little shell.

Um, we've grown. We started with. Probably 12 players. We're now in the hundreds. Um, and the amount of players now in academies at Brighton, at Leicester, at places like that of Asian backgrounds is growing. And actually what the scouts told us at Arsenal that when we did this talent ID day. They said to us, do you know what, for this Talent ID Day, we actually went into different areas that we never go into. 

You know, we normally go into South East London where all the footballers are made and most of the England teams made up of South Asian footballers, uh, South, South London football, South East London footballers. And they said, we went into these areas and we actually, we had a conversation ourselves to go, you know what, like, we've been getting it wrong.

You know, we've gone to look for these Asian players. We've seen this young seat player. They took a few players in for actual trials for the academy. And they were like, it's opened our eyes up in terms of, we need to start looking here and here and here more. So, it worked at both ends. Yeah. You know, the club realized, We've got to start looking there more and they realize we've got to stop sitting in our comfort zone.

If we want our child to actually become a footballer, um, then this needs to happen. So we need to let them come into academies. And we explained to them that kids that are in academies from under the age of 12 have a way more chance of becoming professional footballers. All the statistics are there. Let me ask you this, though.

Um, and this might be a bit contentious, uh, first of all, your name has no Asian ring to it whatsoever. Yeah, I didn't. Yeah. My mum's Chakraborty didn't. Yeah. Yeah. So would it have been different, first of all, if you had, uh, your mother's name, uh, maiden name? And secondly, you, you're not brown in any way, shape or form.

You're like Shruti. You've been on the fair and lovely, you know, the skin whitening products for your entire life. If, uh, joking aside, if.  If it had been like that, do you think it would have been different if you had have been had a surname of Chakraborty?  And the problem for me is I, I, I see it. Did you see it in others?

No, no, I didn't remember. I'm a kid. Do you know what I mean? So it's, uh, what, what do you see as a kid? Kids don't, again, it's learned behavior, stuff like that. As a kid, you don't see stuff like that. Um, it doesn't enter your mindset. So when you get older, maybe you can have the conversations about it. But when I started the same scheme with the PFA, I agreed to be involved in it.

It was, you know, A narrative change. I said to them if we talk about racism once or it comes up scaremonger parents and kids I'm not involved in it I said i've had too many years of doing interviews and I do hour and a half long interviews and the the bit that would come out was Racism might still be prevalent and that was like a three minute conversation I had the rest of it was all really positive about where Asian football should go, everything that should happen, but everybody wants their narrative that makes headlines, right?

Do you think that is detrimental to this entire cause, like talking about racism at all? Should that just not be a conversation? In the, in the main now, we're getting better. And I think we have to change the narrative and put a positive spin on it. Because we had this conversation last week, didn't we?

About, you know, if it's racism or if it's just perceived, uh, on the basis of the quality, you know, obviously you're Welsh, but then if somebody who's of, um, who lives in India comes from an Indian football background too, you know, You know, one of the European leagues, he's going to be looked at differently, not because of the color of his skin, but because just the quality of Indian football isn't great right now, isn't really there.

So what I'm trying to ask you is, do you see that sort of like, it's not a color perception. It's more of a, you know, your region doesn't really have that much football, so you know, maybe you What Shruti's trying to ask is, could you have played for Barcelona if you weren't Welsh? What? Not at all.  Really far from what I was trying to ask, no.

What, you couldn't have played for Barcelona?  No, I get your, I get your question. And again, it comes back to me saying that India needs a hero. It needs somebody to leave and do really, really well. But in order to do that, you're probably going to have to wait 10 years. You're going to have to put a real plan in place and grow it.

And then you might see somebody in 10 years time that actually goes abroad and actually does it. Did you know of any Indian footballers when you were growing up? None.  None. All my heroes were cricketers. Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, all them people were my heroes. I really liked watching cricket as a kid, so they were my Indian Who is your footballing hero? 

My footballing hero, oh God, I had different people as I got a little bit older. It was Ashley Cole, obviously being a left back and small and quick and that sort of thing. Um, he was my sort of modelling hero in terms of who I wanted to be. But I was a Liverpool fan as a kid. So your Steve McManamans, your people like that, um, yeah, were my sort of heroes as a kid, just generic players that were playing well.

But definitely nothing to do with Indian football was, was in my mind, honestly, as a kid, because it just wasn't, wasn't a thing. Still a Liverpool fan. No, to be honest, once I became a footballer and played, and it's actually my job, I didn't really support anybody then.  Once you're in it, it's different, right? 

What's the first team when you, actually no one opens the papers anymore, do they? When you go online, what's the first team's results that you look for at the end of a weekend? My old teams. Swansea? My old teams, Swansea, Villa, Middlesbrough, see how people have got on, my mates obviously, I'll check my mates games, where they've played.

You've played for Middlesbrough? Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately. Unfortunately, yeah. There's one thing I wanted to tell you though. I did have a Newcastle kit as a kid.  One of my first kits was a Newcastle kit, because I liked it. Strangely, it was the one with the, uh, the beer on the front, right? Blue Star. What was the beer?

Yeah, yeah.  Which one is it? Brown Ale. Brown Ale, yeah. Yeah, it's Brown Ale.  Is that an actual beer? On a jersey? Yeah, Brown Ale. Let me tell you something about that. Those shirts were sold here in the Middle East, but the, uh, Brown Ale, because obviously alcohol, was blanked out.  So there was this, whatever the logo was, it was like an oval, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was blanked out. Oh, that's like in the advertisements, Bacardi water. Yeah, I know. Yeah. That's that, isn't it? Kingfisher, yeah, soda. Yeah, Kingfisher soda, yeah. And the CDs as well. What are the CDs? They sell them, they advertise Kingfisher CDs, or alcohol CDs. Yeah. Well, they used to anyway, didn't they?

Yeah, yeah. Did you ever get an offer from Newcastle?  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you? Yeah. Yeah, I went and did my medical and everything. Yeah. Really? In Newcastle United? Yeah. And what happened? Why did you not? Well, okay, uh, so Who was the manager at the time? Alan Pardew. Right. So basically I was at Swansea, I got promoted that season with Swansea, um, and Newcastle triggered my release course of a million pound. 

Um, so they triggered that, so I've gone up there, I've done my medical, um, walked around the stadium, and obviously when you get in the stadium, even when it's empty, it's like Jesus Christ, you know, what a stadium.  Yeah, I remember getting, I got a shirt, my name on the back. Um, I got a DVD of last season's games, everything like that.

Um, I was in a hotel in Gosforth, I think it was at the time. Gosforth Park. Gosforth Park, yeah. And yeah, it was all, so then I went back to Swansea.  It's a quite funny story actually so the owner of the football club said oh that clause means you can speak to clubs Does it mean you can actually move to them?

Now that's not true in any sense But what he was basically saying was if you want to move you'll have to get a lawyer involved and it'll probably make the news Will you do your own negotiations? No, so I had an agent And they were like, oh, it's clear in there that that's the clause and you know Yeah, you would be transferring for that money, but the owners basically know you listen You'd have to take us to arbitration all that sort of stuff if you wanted to force the move through anyway, I wasn't  I Was a young 21 year old at the time.

I wasn't Either way, I didn't really care, but Brenda Rogers, who was the manager, was doing a charity walk up Kilimanjaro and had no phone reception for quite a few days.  So it was a case of, I wanted to speak to him first before I made any decisions on anything. Cause I'd had a great season with Swansea.

I got promoted. I love the football club. I'm still in Wales. Uh, my daughter was born there. So I was in no rush to leave or anything, but you know, the club, the club was saying, we'll offer you a new contract. It's that and the other. Um, we want you to stay, but then it's Newcastle United football club, right?

You've got to understand like it's a massive football club. And for me as a footballer, it was like, wow, Louis Enrique was a left back at the time. It's the biggest football club. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think, yeah, okay. It's a separate podcast.  He's ASMRing on the side.  Yes, basically Luis Enrique was the left back who was a top left back at the time, top, top left.

Obviously Liverpool went on to buy him. Um, and I think I was basically really going to be his understudy. I think try and push him. The way my contract was was designed showed that as well. It was based on appearances and how I did and whether how many times I got into the first team. Um, But I loved Brendan Rogers.

I loved our style of play at Swansea, which everybody remember over them years. So Brendan got off Kilimanjaro and we spoke and he said, listen, I'm coming back. Wait for me. We'll have a conversation. We'll go in and see Hugh Jenkins, the owner. We'll sort everything out. So I was like, brilliant. Okay, fine. 

So yeah. So then we went back into Hugh Jenkins and Brendan went, right, just tell him what Newcastle have offered you and we'll get you sorted. So. I plucked a figure out.  That was twice the, uh,  twice the Newcastle figure. Very clever for a 21 year old. Probably why I'd capped in my last club. I was quite mature for my age.

That's the Indian coming out there. Maybe it's the Indian, yeah, maybe, yeah. Negotiating skills. No, and ended up staying. And I think anyway, Brendan was good friends with Alan Pardew. He said, listen, I've had conversations with him. He did call me about you. But the plan for you there is to obviously be the understudy and come through. 

Under Lewis Enrique, if he's ever sold, make sure you're ready. Um, whereas here at Swansea, you're going to play, you're going to be our number one left back in the Premier League. So for me, that's it's done. So I'm staying at Swansea. You moved to Aston Villa without completing your contract with Swansea as well, right?

Um, well, it was, yeah, no. So this is another good story actually. So I was a swap deal with Jordan Aiyu. So Jordan Aiyu was going from Villa to Swansea and I was going, Jordan Aiyu is now obviously at Crystal Palace and I was going in the opposite direction,  but Rexham had a sell on clause.  From when I went to Swansea, they, uh, I think I went to Swansea for 150, 000 because my contract was up, so you know, you pay the fees for coming through the academy, 150, 000.

Um Was this before, no, Solid Dollar, Solidarity payments were there then, weren't they? Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, so that was the, the What they had to pay. What's the solidarity payment? So if you, if you've nurtured a player through okay, right, but then he leaves on a free Right. You'll still choose some money basically for what you've done.

Right. So get like, like for, it's like reward for, it's like commissions, for reward, for training, education and in their everything. Like they've essentially produced me, you know what I mean? So they deserve something. Um, so yeah, they got their 150 grand, but they also wanted a 10% sell on clause. Now Rex them at the time, every year was like. 

The fans were raising money to keep the club afloat, you know, I mean the fans for and everything like that so when I moved there, one of my first things was a wreck, you know,  a Swap deal is probably the only way wrecks. I'm not gonna get any money here You know, I mean, so I was like no no, this needs to go through as two transactions, right?

So Jordan to them and me to them has to still go down as to translate now I think anyway as a swap deal it does have to be two transactions, even though it's classed as swap deal in terms of legalities. And it has to be, has to be done like that. So yeah, I think I, I was maybe, I think he was classed at 7 million.

I was classed at four or whatever. And I think so Rexum should have still got that 400 grand. Yeah. Of 10%.  Sell on so that's another story where yeah, so that that type of money would keep rex in my float for a season You know, so that was another thing that was important in that deal. Um in terms of  Before before falling the ground was nothing.

Yeah  Yeah, but you also played in the olympics didn't you you rep yeah, so 2012 2012 played in the olympics Um, I got chosen by stuart pierce as a manager. Um, how many welsh players were it was ryan giggs Me ryan gigs bellamy joe allen  Bella's Aaron Ramsey. So six of us all in all, I think that's another podcast.

Craig Bellamy. Yeah. So six of us all in all, um, Welsh were on that. Uh, the Scottish declined. I think that if they declined or just couldn't find any players at the time that they felt were Good enough to be in it. Um, I think Gareth Bale was due to be in it, but had a back problem and couldn't be in it.

So that would have been about seven actually from us. So you had to be for the Olympic teams. I don't know how much, you know, you have to be so many players under 23, then you can have three over the age of 23. So our overs were Ryan Giggs, Craig Bellamy, and I think it was Mika Richards at the time was maybe 24, 25.

Um, you were very young then. Yeah. So that was 2012. Yeah, 2012. So I would have been on the cusp bit. Um, so yeah, so that was a fantastic experience being at the Olympic village, the opening ceremony, playing the games where the whole stadium wants you to win. There's no home in a way. It was like a really great experience and we lost.

Yeah. 2012 was London. London. Yeah. Yeah. The home nations. Yeah. That hence why we made a team. I've spoken to Olympic athletes since then, and they've said that 2012 was the most amazing experience because correct me, If I'm wrong here, the Olympic village was pretty close to central London. Yep. Whereas in all the other Olympics, the Olympic village has been way out of any kind of civilization.

Normally an Olympic park is built especially for an Olympic day, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they have the venues and the, the water pool and the  It's in a Greenfield site miles and miles away from any major metropolis. But they said that that was such a good atmosphere because people were competing in their events and then go to a club in the center of London that same night.

It was, yeah. It was part of a regeneration. Obviously West Ham took the stadium, took the Olympic Stadium as their stadium. Um, and then the velodrome is now used and all that stuff. And but yeah, it was.  All the villages have become apartments, um, now that people own in London. So it was part of a regeneration of the area as well.

Did you go party in London after each game?  I can't remember to be honest. You can imagine in that squad we've got some quite big hitters there, so we don't really go under the radar. Um, but it's, but I think it's, it was, yeah, it honestly was, it was really, really fun. The mad thing about the Olympic village is obviously you probably heard about the food courts and, so the food courts are huge, right?

If you can imagine like IKEA. Right? It's like the size of that, the food courts, because you've got so many different nations. Like a huge canteen. That want their type of food. Yeah, it's a huge canteen. Loads of benches all in the middle. There's McDonald's and Burger King for the ones that have finished the events.

No longer competing. They've not eaten at McDonald's for four years, probably. And they're like, and they're, they're straight into it. But that's the thing as well. In the village, you've got a mix of people who have finished, and are like, let's party.  And you've got the people who are still ready to compete.

And even when you go into the gym at the Olympic village, it's just, it's insane. You've got the basketball player from the USA team warming up next to him. It's a sumo wrestler doing his stretches and next to them is like a small Chinese gymnast, you know, like all in one little area of the gym. And you're just like, this is incredible.

It was amazing. Honestly, one experience. And then you kept any friends from, from that time. Well, obviously players wise. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, uh, athletes. No, to be honest, we were, we were, we were only like three days of the Olympic village. Um, and you know what? It's like people keep themselves themselves, country to country to themselves, themselves.

We met a few people, the basketball players, et cetera. Um, the opening ceremony was obviously unbelievable. If you ever Google it, we had the white Stella McCartney shell suits, which didn't look fantastic on me. I had no beard.  Yeah, yeah, I've got everything. Yeah, yeah, I've got everything. It's in your wardrobe at home.

Yeah, I've got everything, yeah. These Stella McCartney trainers and It was brilliant, honestly. It was an unbelievable time and we played at Old Trafford. Uh, we played Brazilian, a friendly at mid at the Riverside, actually, um, Neymar, Marcelo, all those sort of players are playing for Brazil at the time. I played the UAE in the group stage.

Um, so we beat the UAE. That was their golden generation team. The UAE to be at the Olympics. Did the UK take it seriously, though? Like I know football is a big deal in the UK, but it's club football that is a bigger deal. But yeah, well, honestly, there was a lot of a lot of hoo ha around it because people didn't want it.

So what the problem was Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland felt that well we don't want this to become a norm, you know, because we are our separate nations for a reason and we have our own national teams and they didn't want there to suddenly become a GB team. So essentially like the England cricket team is England and Wales, you know, like it is, it's, they mix it to make one team, um, but they didn't want that to happen in football and it was a big worry.

The national anthem was a big worry, so us Welsh players didn't sing it.  Because obviously it's, it's, and that was a, that, that was a massive thing. The cameras, you, you actually, the cameras were going along the line. They would stop us. We actually said to each other, it was so stupid. A lot of us were stood together as well.

Cause it was a lot of us in the team, balance gigs, me, Joe Allen. Did you all sing the Welsh National Anthem then? No, because they don't play it, obviously. Like, God Save the Queen is the one that's played for the GB Olympic team. Do you know what the So then all the Welsh fans are like, you cannot be singing that.

And then of course a lot of people who are Welsh anyway wouldn't sing it, you know, because we have our own National Anthem. Yeah. Oh, Gwlad! They should have done the Welsh National Anthem. I think the Welsh National Anthem is the best National Anthem. It's the best National Anthem out of the Home Nations.

Yeah, it's the best. I would put the Welsh National Anthem in terms of getting hairs on the back of your neck, I would put it up there alongside the Italian National Anthem. You know, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum. Let me come back to the Olympics just quickly before we move on back to Indian football. Um, should football be included in the Olympics in your opinion? 

Why not? I don't see why not. Everything else is. Skateboarding's in there. They're all in there. I don't see why not. But they're amateur, technically. They're amateur sports. Yeah, yeah. It's a good question, actually. And the pinnacle of football is the World Cup. Yeah. Do you need another pinnacle? Yeah, you probably don't.

And I'd say why not if you can facilitate it and it doesn't matter and, you know, you want to have it as a country. But I do think we've probably got enough. We do probably have enough and in terms of like the olympics is unique to all these different little sports and everybody loves putting the olympics on tv right because just something random is coming on your tv and it's great and seeing people excel at what they're doing so to answer your question no it probably doesn't need to be in there but if people want it to be I don't think it causes a big hoo ha you know the tennis players do it even though they're playing four major events.

Do you believe it should be in there? Well, obviously I was in it and loved it, you know, and it was a chance for me to play tournament football, which, okay, I went on to do with Wales, but I might never have done with a small nation, you know what I mean? So, if you are a small nation, if you are  India, and it's going to be a long time for you to get to a World Cup,  and this gives you the opportunity to actually play against Brazil in a group stage, and play against stars and future stars, then, you Why not expose your players to that?

That brings me actually to, like, it must have been a big deal for your family back home then, right? To say that we have somebody in the family who played in the Olympics. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it was. Because that is something that people everywhere can actually understand, the feelings and emotions. Football, again, Europe, it's huge.

But back in India, yeah, sure, he plays. But Olympics is something that's global because everyone's, like, looking at it.  I think, uh, I mean, you know, someone like there's a legend such as Ryan Giggs to never go to a world cup, you know, George Best, those kinds of players you do. Yeah, I get that side of the argument.

I wanted to ask you though, do you think that's maybe the Olympics is what, uh, India and the national team should focus on? Well, it's been a success for them before, right? 70s, within the 70s, they, um,  they had a bit of Olympic success with their Olympic football team. And I think it's like I said, instead of this, this dream, which right now as we stand, and I'm just going to be blunt here is fanciful to go to a world cup.

In the next, uh, the next two will, they're not going to be there in 2026, obviously they're, they're not going to be there in 2030, 2034, and I still don't see it. So maybe this is the best opportunity to give that you talked about the heroes. There's always a hero comes out of an Olympics always because of the TV coverage, because of the narratives and the stories that come out of that kind of competition is the Olympic something that they should focus on.

Well, yeah. Why not? You should focus on everything. You should go for everything. And I think we'll, we'll, we'll touch on this, what I think needs to be done or could help. But yeah, you should 100%. And like I said, it comes back to it again. Like I played qualifiers for the Andorra and stuff, you know, and the Andorrans were, most of them were workers.

They worked as postman as they worked in their country and normal jobs, but represented their country. They played against Gareth Bale.  Right. And that is like, that's like a, that's a hero story. It's like, wow. Like, you know, I've told the grandkids, my dad played against Gareth Bale. Do you what I mean? I know in the day he might be a postman.

He might work here. He might be an accountant, but she played against them. And I think that that's the beauty of the Olympics for me. The Olympics is just all about that for me, that the stories of where somebody has come from. So then get to like that stage. And, you know, when you, when you listen to the stories of the runners, the marathon runners and all that stuff, I think that's the, that's the beauty of it.

Right. So when did you start getting involved with, um, Indian football and the whole scene there?  Right. I've got to be honest. I'm not involved. Um, so I,  yeah, if I can help. Yes. Could you change the landscape? I don't, I don't know because until you're on the ground, you don't know the landscape. And I found that, um, whether that be in the UAE now with football, you know, I've took the role here as a manager in the, um, in, in division one, um, and given the task of keeping the club in the league cause we're a private club in a, in a, in a state world, essentially.

Um,  So you're on the ground,  you can't know, and you can't know whether what you tell people, somebody above is going to actually do it or not do it. You know, you can give people, you can take a horse to war, right? As I say, but I think there's, there's so many things that could be put in place that will help, but the overriding thing you need is patience.

Yeah. You've got to have patience. And I know with 1. 4 billion people, that's tough, but if you give them something to be patient for. They will. It's not just the 1. 4 billion people. It's also the bureaucracy and corruption that comes on the side of it, right? Yeah. That adds on to the whole, oh, you need to be more patient because there's other priorities for them now.

And that's the thing with me, for me, with, with narratives. So I, if, if that conversation comes up about corruption or that sort of stuff, I just like, shut up.  Stop it, right? Stop it. Let's change the narrative. Now, you know, I go, let's stop it. Let's actually talk about a plan and put it there where people go, yeah, that'll work or this will work or this, that and the other.

And you can push all of that aside. If you do things properly. Do you know that maybe that's me being 100 percent naive, right? But I prefer to flip the narrative on these things instead of constantly talking about What's stopping us? Why don't we flip the narrative and actually create a goal? So if I interject me whenever you want if I talk about different things I've experienced so at Wales in 2010  They came up with a plan to qualify for a World Cup in the next decade, right?

That was their North Star I think any company any business you've got you've got to go. This is our North Star So India have to go by the year The mid 2030s  We want to be at a World Cup. So make your golden star and then work backwards from it, right? What does that take? What do we need to do here here here here and here in order to make that happen?

and then you can put the best people in the world whoever you want in place to make that happen and Set targets and make people accountable That's it to start with. So then you have something that flows all the way through, right? So we started at Welsh football with, we have something called the Welsh Way, right?

We have a massive document, probably 60, 70 pages long. And that goes out to all grassroots football, goes out to grassroots football. So not even something we can essentially  be directly in charge of.  But we're going to give you guidelines. This is, this is what size a pitch should be when you're under 7s.

This is what size a pitch should be at under 9s and the size football you should use. This is under 11s. You shouldn't start introducing tactical stuff until you get into under 12s, under 13s, under 14s. So don't even try before that. Common goals that everybody needs to understand. This is what needs to happen if we're gonna get things in line, right?

This is how long the game should be.  This is how long halftime should be all the basic stuff that you throw across the whole nation go. This is what we're going to do This is the infrastructure from the bottom, right? Then you we also have videos that go out to parents so it gets sent out to the football clubs and they send it to the parents of children in terms of Nutrition, this sleep, do not shout on the sidelines, do not encroach on the pitch, do not speak to the referee, right?

All of these things that you becomes, becomes a norm and it goes out to everybody and everybody's under one blanket. So now we know how you need to behave. So one parent might then start calling out the other parent. Hey, hold on. We've been told. Don't do this. Don't  don't don't don't coach the kids on the side because his parents were all experts, right?

Even though we're not experts. We're all experts as parents on whatever our kids are doing, you know, even my daughter's doing gymnastics and you point your toes, you know, I really don't have any clues to shut up that, you know, I can't I've never been able to point my toes. So all of that goes out to everybody so they understand it.

Right. Then we have models of each player on the pitch and the attributes they're going to need to have. Uh, what we want a Welsh player to look like, what style we want Wales to play, what football do we want to play? How do we want to look in transitions, this set piece, all that sort of stuff. It just goes out as a broad thing because of course in India it's broad, right?

So something broad needs to go out to them to make them understand what it is because somebody's dad is taking grassroots team that has a talented player. Right, and we're probably never gonna get to see him through no fault of him because he doesn't know any different Maybe it's the way he coaches him.

Maybe he shouts at them. Maybe he commentates on the sideline too much Maybe the size footballs he's using are not right Maybe so we I remember when I was at rexham We had something in place when we coached the kids where an hour's training session 30 minutes of the session Every player has each had to have a ball at their feet for 30 minutes.

So ball  manipulation, how many touches of the ball are they getting for the first 30 minutes? So if you've got 15 players, make sure you've got 15 balls and make sure the first half an hour is whatever you want to be. It's over to you, coach, whatever you want to do. You want to do skills, you want to do shooting, you want to do dribbling, you want to do passing, fine, but they have to have a ball at their feet for half an hour.

Then the other half an hour could be teach them how to play in games and How to behave and all that sort of stuff. So it does sound like a whole behavioral, uh, disciplinary mindset story, right? Everything. It's gotta come from your FA. It's gotta come from the FA where this is what we're doing. Is that missing in India? 

Again, I don't know. I don't know. If it is, then hopefully it's something that gets put in place. And then, which is something that needs to, is coming into the UAE more and more now. You gotta go, you gotta have people that go out and audit it. Yeah. So you got to put people in place who actually will randomly drop into an academy at Hyderabad. 

Right. Somebody randomly drops into an academy at Hyderabad and I know don't, don't bring the, don't bring any corruption into it for me, please. Just for a minute. Right. This is where you've got to drop into an academy and you've got to actually check, right. You've got to actually check. Are they doing.

What we're asked of the whole country to be doing at grassroots level. This is what we put out, right? So now I don't want to hear about a code. Someone goes there, they get paid money and get told to sign off and tell we're doing everything right. Yes, I know. I get it. Right. He's the inspector. Right. Um, yeah, I see.

There we go. I understand. I understand. But right. Listen, you can't, you can't control all of that all the time, right? Just do the job, do the work, put the things in place. Yeah. And you might get eight out of 10.  Right, they do it properly and you might get a couple of corrupted ones that eventually you'll find out they're corrupted Do you want to mean and you're gonna slam fines on them or whatever have that have that system in place, right?

I understand excuse my naivety, but I'm gonna tell you how it needs to work right if they want to do it  Then you work up. So then you have a high performance level So we have a high performance module that goes through all of our national age groups Right. This is how we're going to play again. This is the players modeling.

This is what they need to be able to do, and this is how we're going to coach it, right? And that's how you do it. And then we have a world leading coach education course for all the coaches, right? It's now a world lead in the Welsh one. Arteta has been through it, Vieira, Thierry Henry. They've all been through the Welsh one, right?

I've just finished my pro license myself there as well,  and it's got to be world leading, right? So it's got to be the best courses. C license, level two, C, B, A pro license, get your coaches on the C's, right? So you've got to tell each club,  right? All the way down to your under sevens within the next seven years, they all need to have minimum level two and a safeguarding and a first aid, right?

That's it. So then you employ somebody, even if it's somebody from outside a minute, you make sure that is put in place and it has to be done in the next seven years, right? That has to be done. Get that in place. And then you have the high performance, which is the coaches. So we all have a way. So we share across all age groups.

So our under 15s will have a zoom call with our first team manager about something we've done on camp and it worked really well. So you try it. Yeah. And we have a modeling process. So our meetings are pretty much all the same in terms of how we prepare the players for training, what we show them to prepare them for games, what's best practice.

And we share that throughout everything. So share, share, share, share, share all the time, right? Don't just have a first team manager that's working on his own, has no idea what the under 19s are doing or the under 23s or the 17s. Needs to go like that. Regardless of who your manager is, if you change your coach, the system should still look the same.

You've got to find a coach to fit your system. That's a job of a sporting director, a technical football, technical director, right, to put them process in places. And then you find a manager who fits your culture, not a culture that you go, right, there you go, go and find a style of football. And we'll back you.

Here's X amount of money to go and do it. And then when he tries to change everything fails, we've now got to pick up the pieces. And that takes a couple of years. So you know how we're going to make money out of this podcast? I've just realized it, this entire clip that he's given not bakery, this one, you're going to edit this out.

We're going to put like the paywall thing behind it and we'll sell it to FA, the Indian Football Federation. I was just about to say. That is a masterclass. I know by the way that members of the FA watch this, uh, the Indian FA that is, watch this um, podcast. As soon as he starts. They'll be sitting with their book, jotting down notes of what you just said.

No listen, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not revolutionary, right? It's not. And I've not, I've not been responsible for these things. I've just been involved in them, right? So when we made that World Cup in 10 years thing.  What does that look like? Great. Brilliant slogan. Fantastic. Can I interject here?

Yeah. Um, I've always said, and this is the biggest thing I've always said, and this is for years now, not just recently, I've always said there should be no excuses for the players on the pitch. Yeah. And what I mean by that is when players were sleeping on airport floors because they were getting regular flights that were delayed and it was the cheapest airline and all the rest of it, they get to the other end, they lose a World Cup qualifier.

Yeah. They've got an excuse when, uh, there's no GPS, when there's no, when the coach is not great,  there's always an excuse. Some of the things that have come out and what you've just said there is putting all of those foundations in place whereby when it comes to the actual player on the turf, there is no excuse.

Yeah. And you've got, you've got a set of rules in place. You've got a set of rules in place that you can hold people to, even if it's a, even if it's a verbal contract between me and you. Right. I'm going to be here at eight o'clock for the podcast today. Uh, I've, if I text you that yesterday, were you here at eight o'clock for the podcast?

When I was here at seven 40? Was I here for, for eight o'clock of the podcast? Sorry, I've, I've led you down and outta here. I I didn't, I shouldn't have. I I was outside. I had a call, I  had a work call. I here, here you was Only one Indian. But that's a verbal contract, right? I'm saying I'm gonna be there. If I'm not, then my words worth nothing.

Right? So I think it's, you have that in place now. The high performance thing, you go, great, but what does that look like? So, Gary, speed went, food's gotta get better. Our sports science has gotta get better. The hotels we stay in have gotta get better. Right. This, this, this, and this has to happen, first of all, because the players are getting this at club level, right?

So this needs to happen. So now I'm talking about national football, right?  And you might think, well, really? Does food make that much difference when someone's hitting a half volley score a goal? Yes, it does. It's a cultural thing, right? Everything has to be perfect. There's standards. And you have the standards in place for a reason, so that when somebody comes in and doesn't do it, they're out.

You can call them out on it and everybody knows why they're out because look, guys, we've got this verbal contract. This is what we said we're going to do this way. We said we're going to be mid 2030s. Want to get to the World Cup that don't get us there, right? All right. So it's I want to fire some because we're running out of time.

I want to fire some some questions that we got sent on social media. First of all, this is my question. By the way, this one, um,  could you fix Indian football from a development point of view? Question number one and link to that. How long would it take?  Again, this is why I say it takes patience, but the thing with it is you have to put a year on it or a number of years on it.

Five years, 10 years, 15 years, bearing in mind the state of Indian football is not, is in a much worse state than Welsh football was at the time that they put that contract in, or was it? Well,  I think we were, we weren't too far away from the hundreds in terms of ranking.  So yeah, yeah, we were late seventies, maybe I think the eighties at that time, possibly before we really changed it.

So again, and we got as high as Jesus, we were in the top 10.  Um, So I think it's, it can happen, but you need, it's a generational thing. So you'll be looking at your under, you'll be looking at your under 11s and going, right, how could we create a generation there that will become part of the national team?

That so it is, it's a decade. It's a decade, right? Yeah. Okay.  Um, we have a problem in coaching. This is from a Biddy, Biddy Datas, who says we have a problem in coaching. There aren't many good coaches around at the national level. Actually, he's got a point. Um, uh, there's always an argument. Every time a national team coach comes in, he gets all of this, uh, glow initially, and then it all falls apart.

And then the, the fingers start getting pointed and then eventually you get sacked. So whose fault do you think that is when that happens?  Uh, the person who appointed the national team coach. It's the environment. If people keep coming in and failing, it's the environment. Yeah.  Right. If people keep coming in and failing, if you're going to keep blaming coaches, whose fault is it if the coaches aren't good enough? 

Do you think the coach wants to go on to see a B and an A license? Of course he does.  Whose fault is it? Can he get on it? Does he have access to it? Will they put him on it?  So it's, uh, education.  By the way, education, would you do the education in the country or out of the country?  Well, it depends how quickly you can get one up and running.

That's world leading, right? Or good enough. Or have you got enough good coaches to run it? But again, you have to be, you can't be proud about these things. You've got to go out to other countries and learn. You've got to get, you know, Japan came over and followed our model at Wales for, A long time, you know, and it was a sharing thing and now they they've made their own version of it, you know, and I come back to Qatar and what they've done recently, they did the same thing.

They went back years ago and went, right, we're going to get Tim Cahill and we're gonna get this guy and that guy in and we're going to hope to get there and  look at them now. Um, Abhishek says, uh, homegrown coaches or foreign managers. Or a mix. So I really good question. Yeah, it's a really good question.

And ideally, it's always a homegrown one because you got 1. 3 billion people, right? So there's a talented coach there. Um, sometimes the most talented coaches are PE teachers, right? Because they're excellent at it and dealing with people and fantastic at delegating and organizing themselves. But 100 percent if you can get to the point where it's homegrown, perfect.

But until that point, he probably needs somebody above him or below him that can really, really help him. That's from abroad. Who knows what best practice looks like?  Um, any graduate programs for Indians after school in football? Now, uh, this is from Rajesh. This, uh, there's another element to this, Rajesh, and forgive me because I'm going to add a bit on to this.

I have seen in India, um, a big increase and a big explosion in, uh, coaching at youth level. But they reach a certain point and it goes off a cliff.  Either the players don't have any playing opportunities with clubs because there just simply are not enough professional clubs in the pyramid, in the ecosystem.

Or, the standard of coaches, once they get to a certain age, or let's call it level, goes off a cliff as well.  Yes. How do you, how do you fix that? Well, again, I think I think we've covered it really in terms of like coach education and putting a structure in place, putting league and cup competitions in place.

Tournaments as often as you can get teams together, get teams traveling. We talked about this before in terms of the Gothia Cup, the MENA Cup that happens here, get them, get them traveling outside the country, get them out, get the kids out. Some of the kids will never have left the country if they know that being successful in football gets them an opportunity to travel to Europe to play in a tournament because I'm good at football.

And I get to see the world and the parents probably get to travel with them. Maybe  I'm going to try and do it, you know, so incentivize it for people to stay in the game  Um, there's a lot of questions here about the current national team coach, and I'm not going to lay them on you, uh, at all, Neil. No, but you can't lay it on me.

Listen, it's not, it's not his, it's not his fault if you've consistently get underperformance. And we've discussed that, haven't we, in recent weeks. When it comes to the national team, uh, there's a huge emotion involved in this. And I get emotive myself, even though I'm not Indian about it, and we've just come off The back of the Asian cup, where they didn't score a goal, uh, being beaten twice, uh, home and away by Afghanistan.

So there's a lot of emotion riding in these questions. At the back of it, there's a lot of conspiracies as well. And there's the conspiracy theories and all the nonsense comes out and the leaks, et cetera, et cetera. And then all the fingers pointed.  A great manager, a fantastic manager once said to me, one of the top managers in the world still is said to me, he said 90 percent is recruitment.

We just do the last 10%.  As in the coaching. Yeah.  So. He can only work with what he's got, you know, and I think that's and again, that's a generational thing Someone along the line will get the generational good team, but it's gonna take a while. Um Diva  Says, uh, Indian players should try playing in different leagues.

What's your feeling on that? This is a hot topic. Yeah, I mean, no, it's not even, it's not even a debate. They should. You've got to go to the best place in the world. Even my players here in the UEE that I've got, African players, got players from South America, our goal and our selling product to them is we're going to try and get you into Europe.

So we've got a couple of players trials. We had one player actually trial at Newcastle. Um, He's trialed down at Crystal Palace as well. Our thing is, we've got to get you into Europe. You know, that is where the best football is played. Is it easy though, for these players? No, it's not easy. Is to entry? No, listen, there's nothing easy about football.

No, there isn't. The statistics will tell you that. There's nothing easy about making it. But, if you're good enough,  then getting them into Europe, got to be priority. It's got to be priority. They've got to go and play a really good high level of football. I believe in two things with regards to them leaving the country.

One, it's a numbers game. If there's enough going out, there is going to be one that breaks through and stays there. And yes, some of the rest or many of the rest might come back. And the other thing is the environment that you're surrounded by. If you're not surrounded by that  Competitive environment on a daily basis, that intensity.

You've seen it because you've been a Premier League player. Um, and they do get that in Europe. Yeah, and they'll come back and they'll bring it back with them. Yeah, so they'll bring it back with them. They'll come back into the national team after being at a European club and going, Hold on.  GPS is all laid out.

It's all switched on. It's already food bang on time. Every time we get in lunches here, you know, we've got this many masses, this many doctors at the club, this, this, this, and this, they'll bring it back with them. I will feed back in. I promise you, you know, Craig Bellamy. I know Craig Bellamy. I've worked with him at Newcastle United.

He gets a bad rap because he has a very big mouth and very white teeth. Um, he gets a bad rap, but one, one credit I'll give Craig Bellamy was he would, he would constantly. want to call out drops in standards and it could be anything. Yep. Just like, you know, this isn't up to scratch. The, whether it be physios and food and why we're doing this and all the rest of it.

Now, the way he said it and the way he would put it across Yeah, of course. Was not necessarily all as the most, uh, what's the word? The, the most, uh, correct way in putting it. But the principle that was there was correct, which is, and we've seen it for years about Roy Keane and the island, uh, debacle in the world cup in 2002, wasn't it?

The, where he left the island country. It was overstandard. Yeah, it is. And that's the thing. You come from a professional club with very high standards to his national team which has very low standards. And I've heard many, many stories over in Saudi now where that's happened. Big players have come in, and I think you've seen like Jordan Henderson's left and probably not been what he thought it was going to be or wanted it to be.

But other people have come and revolutionized it. You know, and it takes time to get there. You only know what you know. And I promise you, if these people go into Europe, not only will they see the standard that people train at,  and raise their own levels, they'll bring you back with them. Uh, Suvik, uh, I like what you've done there, Suvik.

Su as in the Ronaldo Su. Nice. Uh, Suvik says, uh, Indian football can never develop, uh, better avoiding this kind of questions to some professional foreign players. Is that giving up? Is that just giving up? It's not changing the narrative, is it? Yeah, exactly. No, no interest in that conversation. Um, what should be done to encourage clubs to play Indian forwards and develop young players?

Now, there's an issue here with Indian forwards or strikers in that, uh, if you go through the league or certainly the ISL, all of the number nines, it's called number nines, the main strikers are all foreign.  Is that an excuse again,  in your eyes?  Is Indian football and the ecosystem of Indian football saying, look, we're not going to produce another Sunil Chetri because all of the players that play in Sunil Chetri's position are all foreign.

Is that just another excuse? Yeah, again, it will possibly, but again, if you produce somebody good enough, then a club will decide to take a winger instead of a striker. Do you know what I mean? So they will pick. a foreign player for another position if they feel like you've got a good enough one there.

What I would say is obviously Saudi have a massive problem at the minute. Mancini's crying a lot about his national team and rightly so because he's got about three four players playing a week. A lot of them are full backs, you know There's probably no forward players playing really at all in Saudi much.

Um, so his national team's really gonna suffer Yeah, I I was just gonna say i'm involved quite a lot with  And I think that will really manifest itself since they've changed the rule as well. The number of foreigners is going to really manifest itself. I do think over time the rules will change back.

Yeah. I think there'll be more nationals in again. Yeah. Um. Uh, this comment is, are you willing Neil to coach the India under 17 to under 20 teams on a four year contract? Now, initially when I looked at this, I thought, Oh, is that someone from the FA? Um, but the name on this post is the moron. So it can't be, actually, actually it possibly could be from the FA.

There's a few morons in the F. A. I'll have to thank my mum later. Yeah.  Um, yes. So anyway, the original question, whoever it's from. The moron, the moron. See, look, it's called the moron. Oh, he's called the moron. Um, the moron. Would you be willing to coach Indian under 17s to under 20s on a four year contract?

Well,  answer the term,  uh, limit first. Answer that part of it. Can you, can anyone achieve anything at a development level in four years?  Uh, again, it's going to take time. You've got to get the process in place. That's a no. Yeah, in four years, it's a no. You can achieve something. What is it we're achieving though in four years?

And so I'll come back to you again. What do you want to get to in four years? Are you going to say we need a team that qualifies for the Under 19 World Cup in four years? I'm going to tell you no. Can I get something in place or can people get something in place that will set a standard to help us pave the way for the next five years?

Then yeah, that's achievable. You've got to make it achievable. Right, um, we need to wrap up, so I'll finish with Vasi. Vasi's, uh, questions, uh, certainly one is very good. My question is, have you had any offers from becoming a manager for an Indian club or the national team? Have you ever had any conversations with an Indian club?

No, obviously I've already worked with a Welsh national team under 21s, um, but no, nothing from India. And the second part of Vasi's question is, uh, your advice for Indian players not taking any risks by moving outside of India to play for less money in lower tier European leagues. What would your advice be?

My advice is just just do it. As long as you're playing football, right? As long as you're playing football, just do it. The life experiences you get, whether it's successful or not successful,  is invaluable to you. And I promise you, you'll learn something that you'll come back with.  I just have one last question though.

What happened to Kolkata Golds? I thought it was a very interesting story there. Um, is it still around?  I don't think so. Um, but I think it's, this was the police. Yeah. So basically in it, in order to be able to play football, you have to do your education, right. And, and sort of vice versa. Do you know what I mean?

So  you had to turn up for your education to do it all properly, be at school on time, leave at the right time. Um, obviously there were many orphan kids involved and underprivileged kids, as you can imagine, but. It enabled them to play football, and it went hand in hand with each other, and it was a police initiative to obviously help keep kids off the street, essentially, get them into something that may mean outside of school time, they're trying to go into something.

And again, this is something that is a brilliant initiative, should be coming from there. It should be coming from right up there in terms of all their initiatives. Countrywide initiatives all the way around. Did you see any talents?  No, at the time, listen, we were, we were about shin high in mud in the monsoon season.

So it was very, even I didn't look great to be honest. Um, so yeah, it was very, it was very difficult time and it was a bit of, you know, we were just having a bit of fun really. But what do you think about the atmosphere in Kolkata? We've spoken about it. Unbelievable. And we've got another team now as well, right in Kolkata.

So, um, I listen, I love the city and  There's so much talent available there and the love for football is bigger than people think, especially Premier League football. It's massive over there and give people hope, educate parents, educate coaches, schools, put something in at base level and it will pay you back, but it's going to take time.

All right. Thank you then, Neil. Uh, thank you, Joe, for being here and for breakfast today. We're going to attack it as soon as this is over and thank you for joining us for yet another podcast. We will be back again next week at some point on Chai Tuesday. Wednesday. 

Chai Football was presented by me, Joe Morrison, alongside Shruti Nair.  The show was recorded at W4 Podcast Studios in Dubai. The producer was Ian Carless. The studio engineer and editor was Shiroi Damonte. The executive producer was myself. If you'd like to contact us, head over to our Chai Football Instagram account and send us a DM or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter at Joe Footy.

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