Bengaluru Football Club
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Coaches Ashley Westwood, Albert Roca
[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Roca-tweaking-Westwood-road-map-behind-BFC-success-21102016032016 Rohan Puri, Roca tweaking, Westwood road map behind BFC success, Oct 21 2016 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Albert Roca says football has created a shift of sorts and they have done something incredible. The Spanish coach is on way to become household name here in India after leading Bengaluru FC to the AFC Cup final in 2016 .
It is a milestone that no other Indian club has ever reached.
With Indian football at the crossroads and looking for an answer, Bengaluru FC's AFC Cup campaign can be the headwind that can settle the I-League vs ISL conflict.
But the travel for the relatively new institution started with Roca's predecessor, Ashley Westwood. The fans at the Kanteerava remembered, when, in the hour of BFC's glory , they unfurled a banner thanking him for his contribution. “It's nice to be remembered and recognized. Three years in football is a very long time. I have helped build that club. It's always going to be a special relationship between me and the fans, the players and the staff and management. It's nice to not be forgotten,“ Westwood said, during a chat with TOI.
The young English coach started from scratch with a clutch of relatively unknown players and set a template unheard of in Indian football. The club won the I-League in its first year of inception. After another I-League and a Federation Cup title, Westwood let go of the reins of the club that he helped grow and mature into a force to reckon with. Westwood left after three seasons but his stamp in unmistakeable in Bengaluru's recent epoch-making exploit. “It was a great result. The victory belongs to all of them,“ Westwood said.“They were a goal down. Honestly , they are not used to playing in big game situations. So they handled it really well. The result just shows that Indian football is improving. It is putting them on the map. It has never happened,“ he added. “As for the final, they have certainly ha ve a chance. They are in the final. It's a game of football. Anything can happen,“ he added.
There is an unmistakable flowering to Sunil Chhetri at BFC. His growing maturity and influence over the years both as India captain and club leader can be seen in the two stunning strikes cleared the way for BFC. But Westwood was modest in his role as moulder-in-chief.“Sunil and all the other players are getting used to playing in pressure games over the last three years,“ he said, before going on to explain, “`We need to win this game to win the I-League, we need to win this game to win the (Federation) Cup final, we need to win this game to get out of the AFC Cup group stage, we need to win this game to get into the quarterfinals'-that's all that has been happening over the years. They know how to handle it now.“
Despite the troubles of the I-League, the refusal by certain teams in Indian Super League to release players, the JSW-owned side proved that running a team professionally is all that matters. It proved the crucial catalyst. “We can't control what goes off the field,“ pointed out Westwood, “You can only control your own footballing environment. That's what we did at Bangalore. We controlled the environment. We played in a good footballing culture.There was professionalism. Everybody works hard. It's the way we do things around here.That's the kind of motto we have. That's what we do. The people who are coming to the club know what the standards are, know what professionalism is. Everybody comes together as one.“ Chhetri is slowly becoming a legend for his club's supporters, has been with Bengaluru since 2013. His leadership and his prolific goal scoring has been one of the major reasons for his team's immense success in the ILeague and now, on the continental stage. In fact, his conversion rate at the international level, 51 goals in 91 matches, is better than that of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
“I wasn't shocked with the way we played,“ he said later, “Sometimes you don't succeed even when you're playing well. Thankfully we got the goal at the right time. We went a goal down and that's when the team showed character.“ “The best part about this team is that every single person wants to work hard and that is what makes us good. We are a team where each and every one; right from our chairman to the head coach to the players, all the way to the ball boys everybody wants to work hard and improve. We don't know what we are going to achieve tomorrow, but one thing is for sure that we are going to work hard and push ourselves,“ he said.
