Manas Dubey: The European Dream And Being Without a Team

In part one of this week's episode goalkeeper Manas Dubey, talks about playing in the hardest position on a football field. Plus Odisha's new signing reveals how tough it is chasing the dream of playing in Europe.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 8:46 Goalkeepers and Mistakes
• 18:46 Transition of Football Clubs and Finances
• 25:56 Evolution of Professional Football in India
• 35:51 Player's Football Journey and Cultural Differences
• 48:24 Goalkeeper Challenges and Mental Health

Transcript

Joe Morrison: 0:00

Need a venue? How about Warehouse 4? If you're hosting workshops, corporate events, training sessions or maybe a wrestle fest no, I'm serious then Warehouse 4 is the place. All you've got to do is go to all the Ws. Warehouse 4, that's the word for F-O-U-Rcom. I've got a quick favour to ask from you. There is one simple way that you can support our show, and that is by hitting that follow or subscribe button. Do it on this app that you're listening to the show on right now. It makes a huge difference to us in helping to get the show out there to as many of you as possible, so please give us a hand. Click that button now for me. Thank you.

Shruthi Nair: 0:47

I'm.

Joe Morrison: 0:55

Joe Morrison.

Manas Dubey: 0:56

The bloody Britisha.

Joe Morrison: 0:57

So who are you?

Manas Dubey: 0:59

Just plain simple Shruti.

Shruthi Nair: 1:01

The bloody Indian, late, late.

Manas Dubey: 1:05

That's not late, that's just Indian Standard Time IST.

Joe Morrison: 1:07

And I have 25 years of live football television experience. What do you have?

Manas Dubey: 1:13

And I have been on this planet for 25 years, you sure. Okay, maybe a little more than that, but let's not talk about that.

Joe Morrison: 1:19

And this is Chai Football.

Manas Dubey: 1:21

And on this episode.

Shruthi Nair: 1:25

He has that commanding feel about him and that's what you need from a goalkeeper. You can be a great shot stopper and whatnot, but for him to just have that aura in the game, in the goal.

Joe Morrison: 1:35

When you had a thousand followers, you're probably not going to get a negative comment. If you are, it might be one. When you have a hundred thousand followers, it's going to be 1,000 negative comments if you make a mistake. So as he was shooting Andreas Escobar, he shouted goal after every shot, Bang goal, Bang goal.

Manas Dubey: 1:56

Oh my God, all right, all right, all right. Another day, another non-Tuesday, welcome to.

Joe Morrison: 2:12

Chai tuesday, and today we have a guest in our studio and his name is manas what joe um dubai one more try, uh, dubai, yeah, there we go, there we go.

Manas Dubey: 2:19

We have manas, the bay, all the way from india, dubai, in our studios, manas, welcome to Dubai, welcome to Warehouse 4.

Shruthi Nair: 2:26

Thank you so much. Lovely to meet you, boys and boys.

Joe Morrison: 2:31

Is there something we need to know. Have you told him something? Mind you, the way the world is now, I wouldn't be surprised.

Shruthi Nair: 2:37

Should I say what my pronouns are yes we don't have to go over that. But yeah, thank you.

Manas Dubey: 2:42

No, pleasure, pleasure. Thank you for joining us here, manas, and we really want to know a lot about you and your journey, but let me give you a little bit of background about you know what happened last week? We did an episode on the India-Afghanistan match, which I'm sure you've followed and you've watched and all of it, and that was the first episode we put out on the full episode that we put out on our youtube channel and there were a lot of people engaging with it and coming up with comments and happy to report that a lot of people were in agreement with my views on the matter and realized that joe morrison here was just constantly for 36 straight minutes making excuses for the indian football team.

Joe Morrison: 3:21

Sure, yeah I was trying to put perspective on. It is what I was trying to do yes, perspective which was very biased, right as it should be.

Shruthi Nair: 3:28

No, I mean definitely should be biased in terms of because you've seen, seen how it goes in and out. So I mean, if he doesn't take a bias stand on us, then they're very that's the difference, though.

Manas Dubey: 3:40

Right like I come in from a viewer's perspective, he comes in from an insider perspective, which is why we the bias was very clear, which is also what a lot of the the viewers of our show saw. So I thought that you know.

Joe Morrison: 3:53

We'll just pull out some of the comments that came through and the only reason that triti would pull out comments is if they were favorable to her and negative to me. That's the unfavorable.

Joe Morrison: 4:07

That's the only reason that she would pull out comments no, because the truth of the matter is that they did not, unfortunately, play well in that particular game right and that's what a lot of people saw and that's what they resonated with and what yeah, but there was frustration there as well, which which will always manifest itself in the comments, like keyboard warriors.

Manas Dubey: 4:31

Done.

Joe Morrison: 4:35

That's the frustration that comes out. Nowadays, people can hide behind their social media account.

Manas Dubey: 4:39

I really don't think people like Avik and S and all of these people on Twitter went. That's really not how people type how do people type?

Joe Morrison: 4:47

what are you?

Manas Dubey: 4:48

okay, boomer anyway. How?

Joe Morrison: 4:51

do people type? Not like that, not like that it's the thumbs what does your phone look like?

Manas Dubey: 5:02

what is that?

Joe Morrison: 5:02

a typewriter so let me tell you something before you give the comments. Let me tell you I went in today because obviously I need a new cover for my phone, which is, I think it's about six years old and um, it's the smallest one you can get the mini and they didn't have any, it was just a wall full of um max, is that what you call them?

Shruthi Nair: 5:26

15 Pro Macs Pro yeah Pro.

Joe Morrison: 5:27

Macs something them ones yeah.

Shruthi Nair: 5:29

And I actually saw.

Joe Morrison: 5:30

I was at a game last week and I saw a woman. What are you laughing at?

Manas Dubey: 5:34

Macs? Is that what you call them Well?

Joe Morrison: 5:37

I saw this woman and her phone. I don't know what type of phone it was. It was so big it was the size of an iPad. It wasn't an iPad, it was an actual phone, but it was the size of, like that notebook of yours. It was huge. How she gets that in her back pocket, I do not know. Anyway, sorry, I digress, carry on.

Manas Dubey: 5:56

What were we talking about?

Joe Morrison: 5:57

Comments.

Manas Dubey: 5:58

Yes, the comments Right, yeah, so obviously through the show we really want to get your perspective in and your comments in, because I am no football expert, really, I am a viewer and my job here is to just pick your brains, chew your brains, fry your brains, et cetera, et cetera.

Joe Morrison: 6:12

I've got brains.

Manas Dubey: 6:14

You don't have brains.

Joe Morrison: 6:15

I've got brains. Do you Goalkeepers? I mean Manas doesn't, because he's a goalkeeper.

Shruthi Nair: 6:21

I have never met a goalkeeper ever in my life that has a brain. I hate. I mean I would want to break that stereotype of that conversation for the next whatever. So what are?

Joe Morrison: 6:30

you going to tell me you're a topper like she is? Are you a topper? I mean, I was good in it. Are you a topper, yes or no?

Shruthi Nair: 6:40

I would say so for footballers IQ. Yeah, I'd like to take that.

Joe Morrison: 6:43

No, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about school. Are you a topper? Were you a topper at school?

Manas Dubey: 6:47

If you were a topper, you were a topper, yeah, so.

Shruthi Nair: 6:49

Shruti knows this more than you. Know what Indian Institute of Technology. Iits I was supposed to be an the oxford of england, ohio. Yeah, I was. I was quite good at it until I realized footballing football was my calling, so yeah, and you got through uh, no, so I just I gave a foundation classes and uh, fortunately my family has a whole alumni background. I have six elder cousins, all of them iotians oh, which is.

Manas Dubey: 7:20

Did you go for those paceACE classes? You did.

Shruthi Nair: 7:22

Exactly. Yeah, I was there, it's intense, man, it's intense. Absolutely. Did you do this?

Manas Dubey: 7:28

No, no, I was an arts student Flunked. I'm a journalist. I study journalism.

Shruthi Nair: 7:34

Arts is for those who want to. You know, just step out, not just go to college for namesake, because I did that after my high school. No I did that as well after a while, when I realized that I was a good student, as Joe knows and acknowledges.

Manas Dubey: 7:47

every episode Cheat.

Joe Morrison: 7:50

Yes, anyway, I don't want to listen to you two. I want to hear what the fans think Right.

Manas Dubey: 7:57

So this is after the first teaser that we put out, where we have Avik Chatterjee who said are some players underconfident of themselves or they're more deserving replacements?

Joe Morrison: 8:12

Say that again. Avik says what.

Manas Dubey: 8:14

Are some players underconfident of themselves or they're more deserving players?

Joe Morrison: 8:19

A bit of both, probably, I would say. I mean, when you're losing and when you're on the back foot, you're not confident, are you?

Manas Dubey: 8:25

Yeah.

Joe Morrison: 8:26

And when you've come off the back of an Asian Cup where you haven't scored, you're not confident. When you didn't get a goal and didn't win the game away in Saudi Arabia in the first leg of Afghanistan, you're not confident. When you get beat by Afghanistan, you're not confident. So, yeah, confidence is the answer to that. I Confidence, yeah, confidence. So yeah, no confidence is the answer to that. I hope that answers your question, Navek.

Manas Dubey: 8:45

Right. Neeraj says most players are confident, but it is the senior players who make the most mistakes. At the end of the day, it is a game in which the team with the fewest mistakes win. We have been gifting goals like sweets for Diwali lately.

Joe Morrison: 9:04

If Igo Shima can't see this, then there's no future. Look, uh, mistakes in particular and I'm going to ask for Manus's opinion here as well the thing about mistakes is, it doesn't matter whether you're at the absolute elite elite level or you're at Sunday league, amateur level everyone makes mistakes. Yes, there'll be more mistakes made at Sunday league level and there will be at elite level, but there are mistakes made in every single game.

Shruthi Nair: 9:24

The the issue is about mistakes that cost you, and that's where a goalkeeper comes in, because, um, goalkeepers, would you see, say goalkeepers at every single level, make at least one mistake every single game, absolutely sometimes you can and it's really difficult for goalkeepers to actually get away with it because, like we like know, up the field you have someone always trying to cover you If you actually make a mistake, if there's a midfielder who gives a bad pass, and then maybe your centre-back can cover it, and as goalkeepers it's really really tough to hide a mistake because it's in the back of the net 75 percent of the times.

Shruthi Nair: 10:04

Yes, I mean in terms of when you know, when there's a goalkeeper coach watching the game or a professional watching, you can still say that you know what. He actually didn't intend to do that, but he got away with it. But that's just really 10 or 15 percent of the time. Otherwise it's just the people that watch yeah yeah, otherwise it's 75, 80 percent.

Shruthi Nair: 10:21

You just cost your team a goal, and that's, I mean, that's monumental in terms of the way the game goes. And if it's at the end, if it's at uh, you know, 85 minutes plus or something like that, you probably don't have a chance to recover from it.

Manas Dubey: 10:34

So yeah, which is unfortunate as well. Right like we saw that one mistake from gurpreet in the last game that everyone like, talked about and also tore him to shreds for uh, which is sad, but that's what you do as fans, as viewers.

Shruthi Nair: 10:48

Yeah, I mean, we always have a soft spot in the goalkeepers' union, Goalkeepers' union yeah, I mean you have to be a part of it Is that because you see the game differently, goalkeepers see the game differently, absolutely 100%, because I can see what he was trying to do, which maybe not a fan could see, and from their perspective, because a lot of the times, as goalkeepers, you try to do what's best for the team, but it might not look as fancy or it might not even, you know, in terms of saving a corner, which might be you know what. You could have just padded that away instead of trying to grab on hold. I think there was a. There's an id game.

Shruthi Nair: 11:23

A couple of weeks back, albino Gomez he's a good goalkeeper playing for Srinidhi. There was a long shot and he tried to catch it because he knows from his standards he could catch it, but then that just slipped through his hands and in the back of the net. If you think about it, if he would have just parried it on to a corner. And in the same situation, if you concede from a corner, no one's going to blame him. But because he knows the standards, he knows that he could probably catch it. Nine times out of ten he does, but then that one moment he doesn't and that goes in the back of the net. So as a goalkeeper, I know that he was trying to save his team and he was trying to concede. I mean not concede that corner. So in terms of that it's really really difficult to hide mistakes. But yeah, it's 100. You see the game much more different.

Manas Dubey: 12:03

Is Manasol making excuses now?

Joe Morrison: 12:06

Who else?

Manas Dubey: 12:07

Right, so we have Vishal, we have Vishal.

Joe Morrison: 12:09

We've batted that one away. Come on, Vish Well done, well, done, okay.

Manas Dubey: 12:13

so now Vishal, now he gets a little technical. There's a graph and all of that that he's pulled out right.

Shruthi Nair: 12:17

Really, yeah, yeah, I'll show you so there you go yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manas Dubey: 12:23

So he says forget the goals. The question you should be really asking your main offensive player is when is the 10th successful pass coming from? Out of four matches, nine successful passes, and if you look at the graph, we'll actually pull that up on screen. Thank you very much, Vishal, for this. You can have a look.

Joe Morrison: 12:43

So basically what he's saying is just not many successful passes nine successful yeah, nine successful passes.

Joe Morrison: 12:54

I mean stats have to be. We could go really deep into stats, but stats have to be taken. Stats are a really difficult one because they can tell you so much but at the same time, they can tell you so little, and we talked about this and I don't want to go back into the in-depth analysis of Afghanistan game. But all I care about statistically from Afghanistan home and away and Asian Cup and the three games in Asian Cup is they are not scoring goals. So it doesn't matter about losing scoring goals, so it doesn't matter about losing. They could have lost all three games in the Asian Cup and lost both of the Afghanistan games, if they've scored goals, in my opinion, but they're not scoring goals.

Shruthi Nair: 13:35

Would you agree 100%? I mean, it's like we've never lost a game which was 3-4 or a 3-2. It's always been conceded and not scored on the other end, which has cost us, you know which actually comes back to the goalkeeping thing.

Joe Morrison: 13:51

If you make a mistake and you concede, then there's always going to be a focus on you 100%. But if you make a mistake and concede and we touched upon this last week, didn't we If you make a mistake and concede, but you still win the game 2-1. 100%. Isn't it amazing how the mistake in the goal conceded gets forgotten about. It literally evaporates into the ether.

Shruthi Nair: 14:13

You could be making 11 saves, 12 saves, the whole game. But if your team is not scoring and you can see that one goal, all eyes are on you and you could probably. You know the game could be 4-3 or something and you could be having a howler for a game, but just purely based on the fact that you won the game, no one really pays that much attention from a fan's perspective. Of course the people who work, they know, but that's.

Manas Dubey: 14:37

I'm glad you guys mentioned this. Can we have some more?

Joe Morrison: 14:40

water please, or is it being rationed tonight? Is it extra cost option? Don't get in the way of Shruti's camera. It really annoys her. Never, ever block Shruti's camera.

Manas Dubey: 14:59

Sorry, carry on. I'm glad you guys mentioned it, because the next comment I really want to pull up I was looking for it, like it just didn't come up on my screen is um from the indian football fan. That's his handle. Um, close the video after the first seven minutes, when you were talking about what ifs and buts, which is exactly what they got back into doing, right, like, if the scoreline was 0-1, 3-2, etc. Then the headline would have been different. For fuck's sake, talk about what actually happened and reflect on that. We did Pure PR going on here. We did. We did talk about that.

Joe Morrison: 15:34

It's not PR.

Manas Dubey: 15:35

No, but basically I do see a lot of really disappointed fans right like who are very, very disappointed, and also it's because disappointed in you no, disappointed in the game and the players is what we saw and that's that sort of reflected onto all of the comments that you got on your page on on the on the video that we have you read out all the comments? Sorry, have you read out all of the comments?

Joe Morrison: 15:55

because, by the way, I saw comments where there was a lot of disappointment in your line of questioning last week. Pull it out, pull it out no, I just I'm not as good with phones as you are, so I can't get into the app you know, you need to learn how to type because you have a mini hey, yes, because I have a, because I have a mini and I've got sausages for thumbs, you know yeah, let me.

Manas Dubey: 16:20

Let me just read out one more, which I don't know why you're laughing.

Joe Morrison: 16:24

Sausages for thumbs are better than have chocolate for fingers, isn't it?

Manas Dubey: 16:26

hey, probably yeah why chocolate for fingers?

Joe Morrison: 16:29

it's a goalkeeping thing when, when a goalkeeper has uh, what is it?

Shruthi Nair: 16:33

butterfingers well, but butterfingers is one term as well.

Joe Morrison: 16:37

But chocolate fingers is another one, which basically means when the ball hits your fingers, they bend and they melt. Yeah, chocolate fingers yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Shruthi Nair: 16:47

I'm not saying you have it no, but I hope not. But yeah, butterfingers is also a very common term, yeah, cool.

Manas Dubey: 16:54

Last comment. Last comment Okay, from Nish. I once asked Novi Kapadia, who's a journalist.

Joe Morrison: 17:01

A legend. He's not only a journalist, he's a legend of Indian football. God bless his soul.

Manas Dubey: 17:07

In 2014,. What do you think about India's chances for the World Cup qualification? He said not even in the next 50 years, because our system is continuously producing substandard players he's right and nobody was right, yeah yeah, but this was back in 2014. Have things changed since then?

Shruthi Nair: 17:28

yes and no.

Joe Morrison: 17:29

No no, not in my opinion. I mean, you're the. You're a better person to ask because you've come through that system Absolutely and you've also gone outside of India and played outside of India. Where were you playing recently? I was in Poland.

Shruthi Nair: 17:43

Right.

Joe Morrison: 17:43

So now you've seen the system inside of India and you've seen a system outside of India, so just tell us where you were. For those who are watching and may not know, you, manas, tell us a very brief kind of like cv where you were, and obviously going outside where you were in europe.

Shruthi Nair: 18:02

So I started off with um fc pune city. Uh, in the isl, since I'm a pune boy, a local started off really from you know the ground up. What age I was um 15. Uh, and I started through their soccer school academy, you know the pay and play ones, where you just have a good Sunday, saturday outing to get the feel of how things are.

Joe Morrison: 18:24

So your first coaching was 15, was it? Yeah, which is quite late.

Shruthi Nair: 18:29

I mean, I was introduced to football when I was only 14. And that is, in terms of European standards, quite late. But us being from an Indian, uh, from a cricketing loving nation, it was a similar story for me. I played cricket up until when I was 12, 13, and was introduced really late. But yeah, so that's how it was. Uh, it was Pune FC actually.

Joe Morrison: 18:47

Uh, which is now being disbanded, doesn't it? Yeah, the franchise was moved, wasn't it? What did they?

Shruthi Nair: 18:51

become so. Basically, pune FC went defunct and FCc pune city took over when isl came about, and then fc pune city moved into hyderabad, which was became hydroponics and I was through pune fc uh had their soccer schools. There was a under 18 trial which was um a whole all india organized trial and I mean back in the day I wasn't really that good, to be honest. I mean it was, uh, it was about you know what. What, let's just have a pop. Let's just see.

Joe Morrison: 19:18

Sorry, can I just stop you there. Manas for a second so when that club disbanded, did all of that academy or youth set up disband as well at the same time.

Shruthi Nair: 19:28

It wasn't completely disbanded because we were transferred more or less. I mean, the coaching staff was similar.

Joe Morrison: 19:35

So everyone went to Hyderabad, did they?

Shruthi Nair: 19:37

Yeah, I mean not everyone, but except the top brass, more or less the coaches, the players we just had our contracts moved on Because the ones who were already contracted had to. You know, they gave us a new because it was under a new entity.

Joe Morrison: 19:57

Everything was brand new. Sorry, I'm just trying to get this straight in my head right, give my my, uh, lack of understanding. Yeah, so, uh, so, contractually, right, let's call it admin. Yeah, um, it was just a transfer to the new entity. Yeah, but physically, where were you? So?

Shruthi Nair: 20:13

because pune is pune hyderabad is how many thousand no, not thousand, but yeah, around 800 900 kilometers away.

Joe Morrison: 20:19

Yeah, right, yeah, so physically what happened?

Shruthi Nair: 20:22

yeah, so we had our bases. Everyone was based out of Pune when FC Pune City was playing in the ISL at the Balewadi stadium, as we all know it, and then, when they went defunct, the whole first team moved on to Hyderabad as well, and so did the under 18s which we were in, which I was a part of, because back in those days we did have an under 15 at FC Pune city, but they didn't want to focus so much on the grassroots in the initial years because they had to put on an ISL team going into the first season in Hyderabad and since Hyderabad actually did not have much of a footballing background compared to some of the other parts of India which you know about, like Goa, calcutta and stuff like that. So they had to create a whole ecosystem. And you know, it's almost like a category creation sort of a situation, because Hyderabad back in the day, back in the 50s and the 60s, had a very rich culture when we were supposed to. I mean, there are a lot of coaches who were the coaches of the national team.

Shruthi Nair: 21:18

So they had a really good history, because I think it was Andhra Pradesh police correct me if I'm wrong they had one of the most successful history. They used to beat Rovers back in the day. We had the Rovers Cup, the Duran Cup, all of that. So Hyderabad was really nice as a city compared to what it was now, because there was a huge gap in the 21st century and whatnot, and then now had the fc was the first club to be playing in the first division of um india. So, that being said, it was they were trying to create a whole new culture and sort of reignite the spark which the city had lost over the past 30, 40 years. And they've been. I mean they've been successful because two, three seasons ago, manolo Marquez won the, won the ISL with Hyderabad FC, which I mean, I mean I was very lucky to be a part of that system and in the, in the setup.

Manas Dubey: 22:08

But so why did this need to happen? Um, why did Pune need to be disbanded?

Shruthi Nair: 22:13

finances, which are a huge problem in Indian football. There were mism mismanagements because I mean I know some of the people who worked top in the Looks like they've taken that financial mismanagement to Hyderabad.

Joe Morrison: 22:25

Don't say anything.

Shruthi Nair: 22:26

that may yeah they probably didn't learn from their mistakes. But hey, every situation is different. We don't really know what goes on really behind the scenes. But the main reasons yeah, main reasons are financial mismanagements and, I think, revenue system more or less people. People know this. That isl doesn't really make all that much money if you're a, if you're a club owner most of the club owners who have their money let me stop you there, because this actually infuriates me.

Joe Morrison: 22:55

when it comes to this particular point, you've angered him.

Manas Dubey: 22:59

The rant is about to start.

Joe Morrison: 23:01

I was so relaxed for a moment there. No, I'll tell you why this bugs me, because, look, there's a dose of reality, and that is you're never going to get the broadcast revenues of the Premier League or La Liga. You're never going to get the the stadium.

Manas Dubey: 23:18

Uh match day revenue of the premier league, or la liga or whatever, ticketing is much cheaper.

Joe Morrison: 23:23

Yeah, um, people, people, a lot of people don't understand that a lion's share of match day revenue for the big leagues in europe and the big clubs in europe come from, uh, corporate hospitality. Right, and because a lot of the stadiums in India either have no corporate hospitality or their corporate hospitality is tiny, tiny, tiny, and because the stadiums are municipality stadiums, so they don't own them, so they can't build a whole raft of corporate boxes, right, as a result of all that, they can't get that revenue either. So I've always said the primary focus for any club should be developing youth talent and selling that talent on as their primary revenue driver. By the way, has the ISL got a headline sponsor yet?

Shruthi Nair: 24:06

They haven't actually Still not. No. Hero was last season.

Joe Morrison: 24:10

I know they didn't start the season with a sponsor and I know that around about Christmas time they still hadn't had a sponsor, but I thought they'd have a sponsor. And I know that around about christmas time they still hadn't had a sponsor, but I thought they'd have a spot. I mean, we're getting to the back end of the season now and they haven't had a headline sponsor. Yeah, so that just tells you everything that's wrong financially.

Manas Dubey: 24:24

Um, I mean, that's it, that's it could also be an organization problem, right, maybe they've got I mean because we've discussed this before, but isl still does get a lot of love from india, from the businessmen, from the celebrities, from the Bollywood stars, essentially over the national team for an Asian Cup. We've discussed this before. So I mean it could be. Just, you know, they're just late, it's coming, but they take their own time.

Joe Morrison: 24:48

We're nearly in the playoffs. How many weeks are we away from the playoffs? I think it's a couple of weeks, A couple of weeks from the playoffs, and that's you know. And the season's then over another month.

Manas Dubey: 24:56

So then you think they're actually struggling with finding the money.

Joe Morrison: 25:00

Well, the thing is that everything has a value, true, right. So I can say like I'm sorry, trudy, you want my phone, my iPhone 12 mini, which is rare, by the way, so it has an increased value. I want a million dollars for it. Well, you're going to go, I'm not paying you for a million dollars. Well, I'm sorry, but I value it at a million dollars, and you're, you know, that's a you problem, exactly, exactly. So that's the issue. Everything has a value and if they're not getting it, that that value, then they need to be having a look and saying, right, okay, well, we need to drop that value.

Joe Morrison: 25:33

It's market forces, isn't it? Because the thing you've got this year is you've got, um, it's an election year, isn't it right? In india, you got an election year, you have european. So let's talk about sport. You have the cricket. You've just come off the back of the cricket world cup, which was in india, and you've got the european championships next summer. You had the world cup just 18 months ago because it was a winter World Cup. So, when it comes to marketing budgets, companies only have so much in the pot each year that they have to allocate. And, sorry, when you got there, the cupboard was bare, as the children's rhyme goes.

Manas Dubey: 26:09

Yeah, yeah, and ISL is probably not priority now for all of these marketing companies.

Joe Morrison: 26:13

Well, they're going to have to wait until their next financial year before they then you're a business journalist before they then go. Right now we've got some more marketing budget and it's not a world cup year next year. It's 2025. No, it's not. It's not a world cup year next year. So now we have some budget yeah but it's going to be a lean year, isn't it?

Manas Dubey: 26:30

it is yeah, so does that sort of have an impact on you as a player that you know and you do look forward to the ISL? You know the games, et cetera. Does that sort of reflect onto the players and how the team is run, et cetera?

Joe Morrison: 26:44

Do you get paid.

Shruthi Nair: 26:46

It's Shruti's question.

Joe Morrison: 26:48

Do you get paid and do you get paid on time? I mean anything that you Look. I know there's certain things that you can't say and we don't want. So would you say you've seen an improvement in Indian football over the years in terms of forget on the pitch. I'm talking about, on the pitch, the administration of the pitch. Is it better than it was when you first started, for example?

Shruthi Nair: 27:13

Look honestly, isl, I feel, is one of the most professional leagues in and around and me, having discussed that that, I was in Poland for a brief stint as well and I've seen it and I can compare it that, in terms of you know what tier was it in Poland? It was in the fifth division in Poland, not as high. But again, you know how it runs about because everyone has a whole understanding of India is just a cricketing country, you know, do you even have football and as much. But me, being in the system, I know that how professional these guys are run in terms of a lot of the other countries who might be better in terms of football, but in terms of just league organization or just the basic professionalism is maybe not as much, because in the isl over the years because, uh, when was it 2014 when isl started?

Shruthi Nair: 28:00

Before that, we had the id, where you know I did, I wasn't a part of it, I was only a child, but I've heard stories that it wasn't really as professional, even in terms of on the pitch, off the pitch, but in terms of quality standard.

Shruthi Nair: 28:11

That is one thing which definitely reliance and everyone who's pitched in and the whole ISL sort of journey has brought in that there's been a change in culture, even for footballers as us, because now we have the know-how and the knowledge to you know because some of some of my seniors tell me this that when we were your age, we we didn't know what to do. You know, we didn't know what nutrition was about, what recovery was about, the things you have to do on and off the pitch to actually have a long-lasting career. But this is something which isl definitely has brought, because over the years we've had such great managers, such great players coming in and just leading by example for one of the you know, the younger generations to conduct yourself, because that had been a huge problem so when do you think it started becoming a professional operation?

Shruthi Nair: 28:55

ever since isl came. Honestly that has to be it, because I know initial, in the initial years, isl was more of a you know let's get marketing gimmick yeah I mean, that's one way to put it, but but yeah, in, in certain ways it is true, because we had some of the biggest names in world football at one time I don't think that's a bad thing actually, if it's a marketing gimmick?

Manas Dubey: 29:15

yes, it probably is what indian football needed at that point.

Joe Morrison: 29:19

Yes at that time, yes, to give a push, I mean the money could have been invested in other ways 100 but that it had a it had a the fees for some of those stars over the hill stars, by the way, remember there was the del pierros and all them um, at that particular time, right would have funded just one of them, would have funded an entire club's academy, all, all age groups, for I think at the time it was two or three seasons, it might have been three seasons, and that is an insane number.

Manas Dubey: 29:53

What number are we talking?

Joe Morrison: 29:55

They were getting. Well, we're all getting different amounts, but we're into the millions of dollars and you remember the season at that time was three months. Was it two months? Two? And a half months, something around that.

Manas Dubey: 30:05

Is that still the case, though? Are they still no, no, no, no, no no they haven't got those kind of guys. Yeah, on those kind, on that so they realized it was a mistake then, or was the job?

Shruthi Nair: 30:14

I mean it wasn't even a mistake. It was just a transition period because, as we talked about, you have to start off somewhere and over the years we've had seen this transition about how the quality of foreigners has increased by miles and some of these foreigners have actually helped, you know, grow the indian talent as well, because, you know, when you're looking at guys who are really at their peak coming in now, like some of the some of the foreigners we have who were back in the day as we're talking about, some of the guys like robert perez and all these guys, yeah, at the back end of their career they couldn't do much on terms of on the pitch, yes, off the field. You can pick their brain and sort of look how they are yeah, you do need a little bit of inspiration and what Messi is doing in MLS

Joe Morrison: 30:56

is is probably a similar example Ronaldo and yeah, ronaldo in Saudi Arabia.

Shruthi Nair: 31:01

Yeah, I I totally agree.

Joe Morrison: 31:02

But the fundamental difference is there is a clear strategy, Like Messi, in particular the MLS. There was a clear strategy which is Messi isn't just joining into Miami, he's joining into Miami and coming with that whole package is the Apple deal. So Apple have taken the rights, the global rights, for the MLS and are broadcasting the MLS on Apple TV. So you know, it wasn't just. Here's Del Piero coming and whacking some money.

Joe Morrison: 31:32

It was like you know, messi's channels are involved in broadcasting matches and features, and you know clips and videos, and social media has moved on 10 years as well.

Manas Dubey: 31:45

Yeah, so in that context, and obviously you definitely did see the benefits of leaving India and going to Europe, for example right, how important do you think that is for players? And again, this is something that we talk about every time, where the one question we ask Joe on the show is what needs to be done, what do the players need to do? And he always says go outside and play. How important has that experience been for you? I?

Shruthi Nair: 32:12

mean I absolutely agree with joe here, because, even if you know, someone comes to speak to me now, if someone has a kid who's 9, or 10, or 11, it's my first advice to them that if you have the financial resources, if you have that sort of uh you know opportunity to do that for your child, that has to be done because me having started late, I started when I was 14 and I mean, if it wasn't for covid, I probably would have left two or three seasons before this, because would you? Yeah, I mean I, I was supposed to go to to mabella with my club heather, because they had a partnership for a great night great place.

Shruthi Nair: 32:50

Yeah, uh, but because of kobe I wasn't able to and you know, just backtracked a lot of things. But I have a similar sort of what?

Joe Morrison: 33:00

what did you learn in poland, if there was one thing that you could pick out? Right, what did you? What did you learn in Poland, if there was one thing that you could pick out? What did you learn? What did you take?

Shruthi Nair: 33:09

away from that. I mean, honestly, people talk about how we're not in terms of skills. We're not there yet I honestly don't agree. In terms of your physical attributes, we have some really good athletes. Don't get me wrong. In terms of footballing quality, maybe not so much, but it's just the education.

Shruthi Nair: 33:29

Yeah, absolutely, and that comes with experience. Like we talked about, if I'm a 22-year-old guy who started at 14, 16, and then if you compare a 22-year-old European who started at 6, 7, into a professional system, he has years ahead of me, which it doesn't change much in the physical attributes, but what it changes the mental side of things and the decision makings which are so costly. And that's how we you know, we always talk about how the game is so much more faster in europe. There's a reason for that. It's not that the ball is moving quicker or something, it's just the decision making that what we take three or four touches to because we have to make that decision and with that one second slower, they just do that in one touch out of habit?

Joe Morrison: 34:09

yeah, because it's it's second nature. It's my round. By the way, what would you like?

Manas Dubey: 34:16

yes, yes, I'm not getting up, please do. We need a kingfisher and an indri, a kingfisher, beer and indri. We're only doing indian brands what's in? The whiskey, the indian whiskey, that won the award yeah, and he comes back with water disappointing, as always.

Joe Morrison: 34:37

Come back with a bottle shiroi's shiroi's busy dishing out uh thimbles full of uh water. Because Shirai's busy dishing out thimbles full of water. Like I said, I don't know what rationing is going on.

Manas Dubey: 34:47

So 14, 15, you mentioned that that's when you started, but is that the norm for most kids in India? Do they actually start that late?

Shruthi Nair: 34:55

I mean, it really depends about, honestly, the culture of where you're from, because I mean, my case was a bit, you know, know, I'd say it was a bit of a ironical case because I grew up and I was raised in calcutta, which you all know about how big football is absolutely, but I don't know what was wrong with me, that I decided to go on and play cricket. Back then, my whole perspective was you know what?

Shruthi Nair: 35:18

you played cricket yeah get out, get out in in calcutta imagine that, um, yeah, I mean have you ever received any even one rupee, any financial remuneration for playing cricket I mean, I was only a child, I was only did you, did you get your bus paid for or your kit paid for it was all. It was all my finances. Nothing was taken care of. No, but as I was saying, I don't know, I had some sort of a rebellious instinct in me. I was like you know what? Everyone's playing football. Let me just do something else and it was a bit.

Manas Dubey: 36:00

And then you go to varnasi and then you start playing football when nobody plays football.

Shruthi Nair: 36:04

No, it was actually Pune when my family shifted to, because I was only born in Banaras, again another place which has absolutely no footballing culture, and that's just. I mean it's not great. We have a new club in Tekashi now in I-League and hopefully they have a cultural change there. But even Pune back in the day we didn't have it as much. But you know, I just had had a feeling for the game and whatnot. And so let's say, if there's a guy in Pune or Calcutta, I would still imagine that places in Calcutta, goa, kerala, people still start early, you know, at the street. It's maybe not a professional level, because our, unfortunately our grassroots system isn't that, you know, well developed, well done. For that, all clubs have been under tens or under eight at most but sorry, how did Poland take to you?

Joe Morrison: 36:53

you considered like you know how. What did they? How did they feel when you landed there? I bet you there's not exactly a lot of desi's in where was it exactly? Warsaw? Yeah, there can't be a lot of desis in warsaw I mean, I'd like to def where it was.

Shruthi Nair: 37:08

Actually there were a lot. Oh, really not for football.

Manas Dubey: 37:10

Yeah, desis are I mean everywhere at all parts you go to the moon and you'll find yeah, I mean we.

Shruthi Nair: 37:16

I could have you know chicken biryani if I wanted to, and desis you have you have how many? Three here?

Joe Morrison: 37:24

in this one studio exactly. I'll take you all on.

Shruthi Nair: 37:29

I am outnumbered, but anyway so yeah, no, the ac is everywhere. But yeah, in terms of football, you know, people were surprised. They were like indian football. How's that? How's that coming and why poland was a was a question. I got everywhere because why?

Manas Dubey: 37:44

Poland yeah why Poland?

Shruthi Nair: 37:45

I mean, this is from every single team. I went to the first day. They were like, okay, why are you here? Because I don't blame them. It was minus 17,. Minus 18 in the snow. We're coming from a tropical country. Look at my melanin. I mean, we're not used to this. So all of them were like you know what? We don't love this weather as well. Why are you here? Why?

Joe Morrison: 38:04

not? Have you seen Shruti's melanin?

Shruthi Nair: 38:07

Have you noticed?

Manas Dubey: 38:11

She's been on the same course that Michael Jackson was on. Yes, he calls it fair and lovely.

Shruthi Nair: 38:15

Fair and lovely, yeah, but no, they were a bit surprised and I mean I take that on myself that it was a good credit as well that they were actually surprised. For my level as well, it wasn't the best fifth division isn't great, but they were happy to have me. In terms of, you know, they're used to having foreigners from africa or south america where there's a whole, you know, footballing culture. People are not used to having asians. Even if it's asians, it's probably japanese or some koreans. And you know poland or germany and those countries, because over the last 20, 30 years we've seen this in the bundesliga there's been a shift of asian players being welcomed into bundesliga from japan and whatnot, but indians were. You know, india was a big, big question mark on their faces and you know and were they happy I mean they're not the most, uh, warm people because they don't get the sun.

Shruthi Nair: 39:02

That's, that's how I, that's how I take it as the warmest, the warmest people on planet don't get the sun. That's how I take it. The warmest people on planet earth have the sun, yeah.

Manas Dubey: 39:09

I mean, look at him, he's not happy or sick, he lives in the wet, cold UK.

Shruthi Nair: 39:15

Exactly.

Manas Dubey: 39:16

That's why he's wet and cold always.

Shruthi Nair: 39:18

Can you do it on a cold rainy night in Stoke kind of a place?

Shruthi Nair: 39:23

It toughens you up, it does it trust me, yeah, if you see the sun in once, in three weeks, you know you actually want to go out and but, um, yeah, the lovely people, only when you get to know them, when you actually you know, strike a conversation with them, otherwise they're a bit, you know, poker, face, straight face, and you don't really understand. But I mean that's everywhere and you don't really understand, but I mean that's everywhere and you, being a foreigner, you need to have certain communication skills, but was it intimidating for you, though, in terms of their quality of game and how they were playing, the coaching standards, etc.

Manas Dubey: 39:56

Not?

Shruthi Nair: 39:57

really because I've been blessed and lucky enough to have had that sort of quality. Really, when I started off I mean my first season as a professional when I was 17, when I broke through the ranks in Pune City under 18, I was fast-tracked into the first team, just for training but just to get the know-how. So I've seen those you know type of players in terms of their quality and whatnot.

Manas Dubey: 40:19

Who are these players?

Shruthi Nair: 40:20

I mean I've worked with some really good ISL stars like Marcelinho Ian Hume in FC Pune City and there were a lot of players, I mean in terms of their pure quality. I mean we had Emiliano Alfaro back in FC Pune City. He was in the Atletico Madrid. I'm sorry, Marci was in the Atletico Madrid academy coming through the ranks when he moved from Brazil to Spain. Can I ask you?

Joe Morrison: 40:43

about the comparison in levels, right, and I'm talking about age rather than ability. So a 17-year-old? Sorry, you went to Poland. 20, how old are you? 22., 22. So how would you compare a 17-year-old Polish player against a 17-year-old Indian player, or a 19-year-old polish player against a 19 year old?

Shruthi Nair: 41:06

how we're. We're far off. There's a big gap because even for myself I can compare myself that there would be kids who are 17 or 16, who are as good as me in poland, because that's just. You know how they've been 17 or 16. Absolutely, I've seen some of the giants because I mean, I'm a big guy myself, I'm 196, and there were guys who you would think by their face, you look at them, the 16, but the size of them it's, it's insane this is.

Shruthi Nair: 41:32

You're not just talking about, uh, keepers, you're talking about even center backs absolutely strikers and that is one of the things which because in india you're, if you're told, you're just a goalkeeper in terms of you, we don't see guys towering in at as a striker or a left back or something. But really, there it wasn't. It wasn't that your physical attribute determines which position do you play. It's they have some I mean eastern europeans in general, the, you know, the germans, the slavs, the polish people. You look at their face, you talk to them, then you know they're 16, otherwise you could never make out and this is and as we know, high plays a crucial role for a goalkeeper. So that is the reason why I compare myself to a 16 or 17 year old guy, because he's probably had more training than me, even though I've been in, you know, great systems, and it's just the time gap, because I started when was 14, he started when he was six, seven, and even though he's six, years younger advantage.

Joe Morrison: 42:29

I mean, I don't like to it's six, seven, well, 10, 14, even.

Shruthi Nair: 42:33

You don't know how tall you're gonna be.

Joe Morrison: 42:35

You can absolutely you can only really look at your parents or of the parents of that boy or girl but is it really that important though?

Manas Dubey: 42:42

like the height factor, like, do you have to be tall to be a goalkeeper? If you're short, is that like a massive?

Joe Morrison: 42:48

so what dwarfs? Dwarfs are like what?

Manas Dubey: 42:51

no, there's, there's agility as well, right like don't you need like. That's a valid question, also like when, when you're that tall, yeah, like your center of gravity is there, like you're farther away from the ground no, she's bang on with it.

Shruthi Nair: 43:07

No hundred percent. And joe would agree more, and you know, he maybe he doesn't understand science, that's it's physics which is part of science, biology more than anything, but yeah anyway no.

Shruthi Nair: 43:21

So he has seen this more than I have. About the whole transition about. You know, 20 years back you have to be at least whatever the minimum height to be a goalkeeper. But now we're seeing that, you know, guys are not as tall, maybe who's who are not 196, 194, they're even. I mean, of course there has to be a certain standard that you can't be a 170 and expect yourself to be a top class goalkeeper, because it's just the game is so fast you, you won't be able to catch up. But now there's a. I mean we see that in the premier league some of the guys, some of these guys are not the tallest, uh, in terms of just the physical attributes, but the ability and how the game has really changed for a goalkeeper.

Shruthi Nair: 43:59

We're not just shot stoppers anymore. You have to be good with your feet, you have to command your box, you have to have the tech, technical and tactical sort of nuance about you know how you have to manage your game and it's just not just about covering. You know your ATRs and whatnot. So we've definitely height definitely plays a role and, as you said about this pros and cons to everything, a guy who's, you know, five inches smaller than me, probably has quicker reaction just because his you know framework isn't as big as mine. And on the contradictory part, I could be reaching some things even with the bad positioning of my you know when there's a shot compared to him, just because I have that sort of reach.

Manas Dubey: 44:38

So how tall are you?

Shruthi Nair: 44:39

196. That's six foot five.

Joe Morrison: 44:42

So who is your goalkeeping hero, then? Or goalkeeping inspiration? Neuer, 100% Manuel Neuer. Why?

Shruthi Nair: 44:51

The 2014 World Cup was.

Joe Morrison: 44:53

Sweeper keeper.

Shruthi Nair: 44:54

Yeah, on the halfway line the game against Algeria. That one was.

Joe Morrison: 44:58

Was that the one where he came to clear a ball way out on the left wing? Yeah, like just inside the yeah and he had.

Shruthi Nair: 45:06

I think that it was a record that he intercepted no he had the most touches outside the ball box. It was 14 touches or something that game, which was more than the opposition. Yeah, because we had some good players in that Algeria team. There was Slimani, rahim Rahimi and a couple. So, yeah, I think Neuer always, always has had that it did to be fair to me, did kind of reinvent the goalkeeping position, didn't they absolutely?

Joe Morrison: 45:31

because there wasn't you'd have to say that prior to him, or prior to, certainly, that world cup, the sweeper keeper thing wasn't really a thing. I mean, it did exist, but it certainly wasn't to the fore, was it that it had to be? After that, every club was looking for a keeper they have to incorporate that whole aspect.

Shruthi Nair: 45:50

And that's a brand new aspect for a keeper and this is what we talk about that even now the game has evolved so much for a goalkeeper you can't just be a good shot stopper in terms of you know we talked about this that the two types of goalkeepers. Now if you look at a premier league table, you know edison doesn't get all that many shots, maybe in the game, probably a couple, but then a team who gets battered every single week like a luton or nottingham. So a goalkeeper's cv has to be very different when he's playing for manchester city. You have to have better understanding of the game when to to come out, when not to come out, because you're playing a high line.

Joe Morrison: 46:26

So you're saying to be an additional defensive slash offensive player? Absolutely, but when you're at the bottom end of the table. You get battered by shopping.

Shruthi Nair: 46:36

Absolutely, and this is how much it has evolved.

Shruthi Nair: 46:39

It's not just about what you can do on the line. There's so many examples about I could imagine there can be keepers who can play really good at a top-level team just because they have that edge about decision-making when to come out, when not to come out but they might not have the best of shot-stopping so they get peppered on the other end if they're in a bottom-placed team. So that is how much the position has changed over the years. And that is how much the position has changed over the years. And as you were talking about Neuer, he's just incorporated the whole, you know, sweeper-keeper thing and I think it was only Barthes Fabian Barthes before that who would do like just a little bit. But ever since Neuer did that and I think the reason why it changed with him was because that really showed the coaches and the whole footballing system that you can have a really like you can have an upper hand if you have a goalkeeper who can do all of that. So now it's a given like you have to have those things.

Joe Morrison: 47:35

This episode was recorded at W4 Podcast Studio by Sheroy De Monte, who paints his fingernails, and put together by executive producer Ian Carlos, who has a bit of a middle aged spread. Let's call it a muffin top. It's a good job that. They're great at what they do. W4 Podcasts check them out. 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, that is, at J-O-E-F-O-O-T-Y. We love hearing from you and we will be every week picking out the best of your questions and comments. If you're based in Dubai and would like to record your own podcast or have a professional podcast team assist you in producing branded content for your business, then head over to wwww4podcaststudiocom and get in touch with the team.