The stage was set, the room packed with club officials from ISl side Delhi Dynamos and journalists. While this level of attention was reserved last year for Dutchman Harm van Veldhoven too, this time, there was bigger level of expectation in the air. And it was deserved too. After all, Dynamos revealed 2002 World Cup winner, multiple Spanish league titles and UEFA Champions leagues winner Roberto Carlos as their marquee manager on Thursday.
Or at least that was on the cards. But by the end of the interaction between himself and new Director Prashant Agarwal, Carlos had put pen to paper and become the marquee player too.
Much before all that, there were messages of luck and support from fellow footballers — Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Marcelo, Kaka and David Beckham.
As the Brazilian left back entered the room, with Dempo’s Bento as his translator, his face had an expression of excitement and nervousness. A shy person by his own admission, he spoke in Portuguese and threw in the customary Jai Hind and Namaskar to the audience. On his first visit to India, the level of traffic in the city took him by surprise but claimed the time passes by thanks to the music.
The domineering question on everyone’s lips was, why Delhi DynamosIJ “The project and the structure told to me were the key points. You have to be where you will be happy. And I’ll be happy here and do good things. I would like to thank the owners for bringing me here and to make me part of this family,” said the 42-year-old.
This won’t be Carlos’ first off the field stint since hanging up his boots in 2012 as he’s briefly worked with Russian side Anzi Makhachkala as an interim manager and then coached Turkish club Sivasspor before becoming technical director at another Turkish team Akhisar Belediyespor this past January.
He considers his coaching style to be simple and easy and will work in forming a sync between the Indian players and the foreign players in the squad. “I am a very easy coach. The biggest coaches in the world work simple. Football is simple and it is a unique language. Everyone around the world knows how to play football. The Delhi supporters will see great games and we’d put in hard work in achieving that.”
With multiple player-manager roles in the ISl in Marco Materazzi (Chennaiyin), Nicolas Anelka (Mumbai City FC) and now Carlos, the point raised is of the managers picking themselves in order to spearhead the team. 2002 World Cup winner Roberto will do the same and claimed he is mentally and physically ready to be on the field too. “I know I can play. I believe if I wasn’t able to get ready physically, mentally and psychologically I wouldn’t have played.
“My last game (exhibition for Real Madrid veterans) was 20 days ago and I scored two goals. Physically, I feel good as a player and coach. I want to play, touch the ball and score goals. Football is my life,” he said enthusiastically adding he watched the first season of ISl too.
Known for being able to cover the entire flank and chipping in with spectacular free kick goals, Carlos is most remembered for two of his goals: versus France in 1997 and versus Tenerife in 1998. Both goals defied the laws of physics with their bend on the ball but Carlos picked the free kick against France as the better of the two. Enquired on how he achieved it, Carlos shrugged and said, “I don’t know how I did it,” with a smile.