Well it is the last game for FC Mumbai City at their home ground this evening as they take on Atletico do Kolkata for a place in the final of the Hero Indian Super League 2016. Kolkata lead after the first leg of the semi final which saw more goals than expected and ended with Kolkata beating Mumbai 3-2 and hence have just the one goal lead going into the second leg.
The other semi final finished 1-0 in Kerala's favour against Delhi with the second leg being played in Delhi tomorrow evening. I will be catching the early flight tomorrow morning to be there in plenty of time and I hope that Kerala Blaster can hold on to their one goal advantage and take a place in the final at their own stadium in front of another full house on Sunday 18th December, So lots to play for both tonight and tomorrow with those final places up for grabs. One thing that is for sure and that is if Kerala Blasters do make the final on Sunday then we can expect another packed stadium which will be rocking hours before the game starts.
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Today is Matchday for our crew this time in Delhi and all the rigging crew would have been down at the stadium since yesterday making sure all the equipment is in order and ready to go. At the last game here there was a ban on using any generators because of the smog issues, which all our equipment usually relies on, and had to connect with the local electrical supply!
I am usually at breakfast on a Matchday by 9am, and the quality of breakfast varies from hotel to hotel and could be anything from a dosa to tomatoes on toast, pancakes or muesli and fruit. Coffee could be a great or a bad choice and fruit juice could be brilliant and varied with mango juice, orange juice, sweet lime, or watermelon! In Pune and Guwahati they will make up your own juices for you. I am usually joined at breakfast by my fellow commentator either John Helm or Andy Paschialidis which gives us a chance to chat through whatever is in the morning papers or go over last night's ISL game. At around 11am I like to slip into the gym for a couple of hours and get a bit of a sweat on. For the vast majority of the time here in India you are sitting down, either on the plane, at the airport or at the stadium or hotel, so it is good to have a jog and a swim when possible. The 'Talent', as we are referred to on call sheets, that being the commentators and presenter/reporter, usually leave the hotel for the stadium at around 3.15pm/3.30pm, with lunch provided at the stadium with the rest of the production crew. Kick off is always at 7pm and the teams arrive at the stadium 2 hours prior to kick off. Our journey from the hotel to the stadium by car is usually pretty eventful, driving over here is an art of fighting for every inch available on the road and basically doing what you want, going where you want and making sure that everybody knows what you are doing. Whether that means going down the motorway or slip road against the flow of traffic or overtaking on a blind bend on the crest of a hill, it is just normal over here. Once safely at the ground we check in with the director, Dave Horridge, for any last minute news, have a bit of lunch, then I go and settle into the commentary position. Sometimes I come down to have a chat with either a manager or some of the players as you get to know quite a lot of them. Last time I ventured onto pitchside in Goa, whilst waiting for John Helm to interview Bernard Mendy of Chennaiyin FC, I got blasted by the pitch sprinkler which completely soaked me, not only that but all the Atletico de Kolkata players were just walking past at the same time and had a right good laugh at my expense. Anyway after pitch side interviews I am usually back up in the stand behind the monitors in the commentary position at least 90 minutes prior to kick off. The final team sheets come through about an hour before the game and this is the first time that we get to see the line ups and can then try to sort out what formations the teams might play. At 7pm the game starts and we are there for the next 2 hours until after the game finishes and we have announced the daily award winners, then making our way onto the pitch for a quick 2 minute interview between the two commentators chatting about the game or the league in situation in general. Once the interview are done then it is back to hotel, a quick couple of beers and bed because the following day we check out, which could be pretty early sometimes, and move on to the airport and a flight to the next venue. We then usually check into the hotel, have something to eat, sleep and then repeat the above for another Matchday. Tomorrow morning we leave Mumbai after a five day break and head down to Kerala for the first leg of the second semi final between Kerala Blasters and Delhi Dynamos. The other semi final starts this Saturday night between Atletico de Kolkata and FC Mumbai City. I think we could well see a Mumbai - Delhi final, but my heart wants Kerala to make the final. The 60,000 regular supporters who cram into their stadium deserve to see their home team in the final of the Hero Indian Super League which is being played this year in Kerala. The atmosphere will be electric whether The Blasters make the final or not, but if they do then watch out because it will be something of a unique and special occasion. After the first leg of the Blasters v Dynamos semi final we head back up to Delhi for the second leg next Wednesday and hopefully there will no serious problems or flight delays caused by the smog. The other semi final will be completed a night earlier on Tuesday so Kerala and Delhi will know who they could meet in the final should they win through. After that it is back down to Kerala for the final on Sunday 18th December and the climax of the Hero Indian Super League 2016.
It gives me a lot of pleasure just thinking of some of the great strikers that I had the pleasure of playing with. There are also numerous fantastic players in that position that I came up against during the twenty years of playing. Dalglish and Rush, Joe Jordan, Mark Hughes, David Speedie, Andy Gray, Gary Shaw, Trevor Francis, the list is endless. This piece is about players that I played with at either club or international level. I was honoured to play for Ipswich, Leicester City, Southampton, Bristol City, Brighton and finally Cardiff City. A great striker, in my opinion, needs to posses great mental and physical courage, composure, concentration and craft. Craft is knowing what you job is all about, in possession of the ball and without it, concentration is all about being alert for that one chance that might come your way in 90 minutes. Composure is then being able to take that chance or being able to make the right decision in front of goal. Physical courage is obvious, and in the seventies and eighties it really was a physical game. Strikers had to have mental courage also, to be available for their team mates to pass to even if it meant another kicking from an opposing 'hod carrier'. Mental courage to go one on one with the opposing keeper I front of the Kop at Anfield or the Stetford End at Old Trafford. I think it was Brian Clough who used to say that good players used to be able to tick 3 boxes, mental strength, physical strength and natural ability, and he reckoned that if at least 9 out of your 12 man squad didn't tick all 3 boxes then there was no point in playing the game. The mental strength element was always the most questionable quality, and Mr Clough didn't get too much wrong in his day! My target man would be my old team mate Paul Mariner, fit, strong, brave and brilliant in the air. Paul knew how to look after himself on the pitch, and it could be brutal at times, but he never shirked at challenge ever. Paul was a great target for defenders to play the ball to, he had a great touch and would always try to make even a crap pass look good. To play alongside Paul I have chosen Alan Brazil, a great goal scorer with great fitness, pace, and bags of natural ability.
Alan was and still is the best one on one finisher I have ever seen, he used to bamboozle goalkeepers, even our own at Ipswich who knew what he was trying to do. Alan scored one of the best goals I have ever seen, playing at Bolton in the famous game where Frank Worthington scored his 'lucky' goal, Alan's was even better! To go with Paul and Alan there is only one choice, a player who started his pro career at Southampton and has a goal scoring record at Club and International level second to none. Alan Shearer would be my third musketeer, a player who overcame some very bad injuries in his time but never lost his courage, craft, concentration or composure. I think those three would be a challenge for any back four in the world, Brazil's running power, the physicality of Mariner and Shearer, a threat both on the ground and in the air, and the banter would be enough to drive anyone mad. My captain, someone who would be celebrating his birthday today would be Bobby Moore, RIP. The England 1966 World Cup winning captain would play in the back four alongside Terry Butcher, George Burley and Kenny Sansom, with Ray Clemence in goal. A midfield of Muhren, Wark and Le Tissier would supply a front three of Brazil, Mariner and Shearer, formidable. If you wonder about when I played with Bobby Moore; Tonight sees the final league game of The Hero Indian Super League 2016, between Kerala Blasters and North East United, and what a game it should turn out to be. Kerala Blasters need just a point to reach the 4th and final semi final spot which is still up grabs whilst North East United must win the game to do likewise. Blasters will have the benefit of playing in front of their own crowd which could number up to 60,000, so they must start the game as favourites, but we have seen many away victories in this season's league campaign and another would not be a surprise tonight. Already qualified are Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata but the result of tonight's game then dictates the final placing in the league and therefore determines who plays who in the two legged semi-finals. Mumbai will definitely finish top of the table and will play whoever finishes fourth and second will play third over two legs, i.e. home and away. The final placing once, the last game has finished, will be decided on points total as per normal, but if a team are tied on same points then it will go to head-to-head fixtures from the seasons results, this would kick in if Kerala drew tonight's match and were then level on 20 points with Atletico de Kolkata. ATK beat Kerala earlier on in the league so they would stay in third and Kerala qualify in fourth. Now we have a week off from matches as teams prepare for those semi-finals and we are based at the Trident Hotel, Nariman Point, Mumbai, which just happens to be the same hotel as the England test match team and the Sky Sports commmentary crew. I have already been able to see and have a chat with Mike Atherton and Ian Botham who both seem to be having a good time here in India. With the Test Match starting on the 8th of this month, in four days time, I think we will manage to get at least a couple of days at the Wankhede Stadium compliments of Star Sports. Now that the season is coming to end we lose most of Crew B, seen in the first photo, who are a wonderful gang of specialist electrical engineers, audio engineers, lighting and cameramen. All good guys who graft really hard and party even harder. It has been a pleasure to work with them over the last 10 weeks and I look forward to working with them all again in the future.
This morning I took a twenty five minute stroll from the Trident Hotel over to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, fully recovered after the 2008 terrorist attack, opposite the Gateway for India which was built by the British Raj in 1924. There were thousands of tourists and locals having time to enjoy the views which stretch back across the Arabian Sea which wraps itself around the reclaimed land of Colaba. The sad thing about Mumbai is that as well as being the Bollywood film industry capital and having wealth in extremes, there are still and always have been, extremes of poverty. For every sight of magnificence there is also a picture that is hard to process, how can so many have so much and yet so many still have nothing. I know and appreciate that it is how Mumbai is, but it is still, and always will be, a shocking and sobering experience. The sad news for all FC Goa fans was the teams failure to make it to the semi final stage of Hero Indian Super League 2016. A poor goal scoring record and poor home form tells the sad story of Zico's team this year. It is also a disappointment for us as we head towards a week off, between the end of the regular season and the the start of the semi finals, which we all hoped would be in Goa and therefore giving us some more free time on the beach. Now it looks like that free week will be spent in either Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata. Mumbai have qualified and I think Kolkata and Delhi will definitely join then and the fourth place is going to be a scrap between Kerala, Chennaiyin and North East United. My hope is that Kerala fill that final spot though any of the three could put a late run together and qualify. Goa still have 2 games to play which again shows what a poor season they have had! Anyway with only four games for our team to commentate on before the semis it time to get on the road again. Our production crew left the hotel at 2.30am to do back to back game whilst we have the luxury of a late check out and an early afternoon flight to Chennai via a stop off at Hyderabad. After the Chennaiyin game we travel to Kolkata, then back to Goa before heading up north again to Mumbai for our last league game. Sitting here on my balcony overlooking Bogmallo beach I can see someone swimming across the bay which must behalf a mile long and the fella swimming across the bay is about halfway now, doing the 'butterfly stroke'! Time to pack the suitcase again and head off to the airport for the usual hassle with queue jumpers.
As we wait for our next game in Guwahati,between North East United and Pune, everybody is still in the middle of a cash crisis. It is 13 days since Prime Minister Modi made all large currency notes illegal tender, with a 50 day window for everybody to change old for new, or to put old into bank accounts. Demonetisation has been introduced to try and rid India of some of the 'black money', or undeclared earnings, that have been a major problem in India for a long time.
Tax Inspectors and the Police have made raids and stopped suspicious vehicles and have founds millions and millions of rupees that people had not declared earlier. At the moment the authorities have also found that as much as 7% of the large currency notes that have been exchanged are fake! Every day here you can still witness queues of people either trying to withdraw money from cash machines or joining a line of people trying to get into their bank to pay into their own accounts. I have commentated on 19 games now, the opening game of the Hero Indian Super League was on 1st October and now 43 days later tomorrow's game between Delhi Dynamos and Atletico de Kolkata will mean that we are over two thirds of the way through the league programme which will finish on Dec 4th.
Todays flight will be number 21 will 11 more to go which would include getting to the semi finals and the final, and then home in time for Christmas, leaving Mumbai on 20th December. I will have done 32 games in all and so far all has gone well. Last night in Goa we saw FC Goa win their first point at home with a 2-1 win against North East United with literally the last kick of the game. The league now has every team in with a chance of making the top four spots and hence earning themselves a place in the semi finals. The last couple of weeks I have worked alongside John Helm, renowned sports commentator for over 40 years. John has worked on World Cup tournaments, Olympic Games, Women's football and just about every sport and tournament worldwide. We have a great time, not only working together, which first started in India about 14 years ago, but we have a great time away from football too. In the last couple of weeks, on our day off, we managed a game of golf in Chennai at the Madras Gymkhana Club and then called in at Delhi Golf Club for 18 holes also. It was our own Hero Indian Super League Golf Classic. Our last game together is tomorrow in Delhi and his company will be sorely missed. Apologies for not posting anything in the last couple of weeks but if you think life has been been a bit chaotic in the UK whilst watching the American elections, then add to that a pollution crisis in Delhi hitting 17 times the recommended levels and PM Modi taking all the 500 INR and 1000 INR currency notes out of circulation. This was done to try and stop the illegal black trade of cash negotiations going on in businesses all over India. Banks have been overwhelmed by tourists and locals trying to cash in their notes before they become illegal tender in the next few weeks. You have to cash in all your big notes for 100 INR notes, but there is not enough of those in circulation yet. A new 2000 INR note is being produced and once ATMs are back open again then this will be the biggest note you can get, worth about £23.
it is hoped that this will stop people from hoarding cash and force people to deposit undeclared earnings etc. To be continued; |
AuthorRussell Osman is a former England & Ipswich Footballer, 4 Handicap Golfer and Father of 3. Archives
April 2018
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