‘Forget what’s going on outside the four lines of the field’

Punjab’s new head coach Panagiotis Dilmperis.
| Photo Credit: Stan Rayan

For Punjab FC which doesn’t play its ISL residence video games at residence however in New Delhi, its season-opener towards Kerala Blasters in a packed Nehru Stadium right here on Sunday might look like a nervous encounter.

But Punjab’s new head coach Panagiotis Dilmperis has discovered a solution for this, from his personal taking part in days.

“I was trying to address this question when I was a young football player, playing professional… you have to put your body and mind on the four lines of the field and forget what’s going on outside of this,” mentioned the Greek right here on Saturday.

“We have worked a lot with my players in this mindset, to try to prepare them for such situations. I think it would be a good test tomorrow to see how we adopt this plan.”

Incidentally Punjab, which made its ISL debut final season after successful the I-League and making the reduce, doesn’t have any participant from Punjab in its workforce.

“I think we don’t have any…that’s the one target we have, we want to create youth players from the region, from Punjab…players with the right mentality, to be professional and be ready to address the challenges of the ISL,” mentioned Dilmperis.

It may very well be powerful for the younger aspect to draw its followers from residence when it performs in Delhi and the coach is just not positive when his workforce will get to play its ISL video games in Punjab. But he’s clear what the membership needs to do.

“Punjab FC wants to develop, that doesn’t mean only results. The new challenge is how we can bring more youth players from Punjab to our academy, bring new technology to help the staff and players, bring new players, bring new mentality. I think these are some of the major challenges that we have to address,” he mentioned.

“If we are an example for other teams and other teams, that have better things, are an example for us … that is the only way we can develop Indian football and Indian players.”