New Delhi: Argentine great Pablo Aimer and coach Lionel Scaloni felt ‘good things’ await India’s U-20 players in international football, according to Floyd Pinto, an engineer, who engineered the country’s one of the most memorable triumphs in the sport. India had beaten Argentina 2-1 in the COTIF Cup football tournament and the players and coach returned here Friday morning.
“Yesterday (Thursday), just before leaving we had an interaction with Pablo Aimer and their (Argentina) head coach Lionel Scaloni. Both incidentally are World Cuppers and they had really good words for our players, they said we played with a lot of passion, we ran a lot and we never gave up, never made it easy for them,” coach Pinto told this agency.
He added:”They were surprised by the way we performed. They encouraged us a lot and said that if this group play for another two or three years they can achieve some good things in international football.”
Pinto said that he’s happy as ‘the team improved as the tournament progressed and expressed optimism of keeping the momentum.
If we want the world to take notice of Indian football, then we must play against strong teams and create upsets
Floyd Pinto – Coach
“It still feels like a dream (beating Argentina), but if you want to move ahead as a footballing nation, you need to ruffle some feathers. I think we have done that. And credit to SAI, to AIFF president Praful Patel, (general secretary) Kushal Das for organising such an exposure tour.
While Scaloni is the Argentine coach, Aimer works as the technical director.
“If we want to move ahead in football we have to compete against such teams and create upsets. Only then the world can step up and take notice of what’s happening in Indian football. I would like more results like the one against Argentina to happen,” informed the coach.
Encouraged by the result against Argentina, the coach said his players now want to keep playing big teams. “We no longer want to go out of India to have training camps, to play academy teams. We want to play against national teams, in competitive tournaments. We are not afraid of playing against the likes of Argentina, Venezuela,” asserted Pinto.
