Skip to main content

Bhaichung : most valuable player of the AFC tournament

By himalayanreview
from http://sikkimreporter.com//

New Delhi: The Sikkimese Sniper has been one of the best Indian players in the ongoing AFC Challenge Cup ’08 and that has also put him in the reckoning for the Most Valuable Player of the Tournament.
The 32 year old has had a role in almost the goals scored by the Men in Blue in the AFC Challenge Cup ’08 and always looks a threat to the opposition’s defence.
While every member of the Indian team has been waxing lyrical on Coach Bob Houghton, the skipper is no different. “I won’t say that he (Bob) drastically changed me as a player. Under him, one gets to learn a lot not just as a player and that motivates.”
When Bhaichung mentions the word ‘motivation’ it is to be taken very seriously as a few years back, he mentioned the lack of it which made him consider hanging his boots. “I never said that I was retiring then. I said that I’m considering quitting too. It was primarily due to lack of motivation.” Enter Bob Houghton and the Englishman was impressed with the Mohun Bagan star’s active presence in front of the goal and as a leader.
“Bob wanted me to re-think my decision,” said Bhaichung reflectively. What has kept Bhaichung going till today? “Wanting to win and to score goals... The last two years, our team has done outstandingly well. We have lost only three or four times. It’s a great achievement.
“We have played many good matches. A good Nehru Cup and a good SAFF Cup as well. Only the game against Bhutan in SAFF Cup, we didn’t play that well.” Post-SAFF Cup, certain circles criticized the national team, but everyone in the team seems unperturbed by all of it for good.
“We defeated Maldives in the group stage but lost in the finals towards the end. It’s like India (cricket team) play six games against Bangladesh and loses the final. That doesn’t mean that India plays worse than Bangladesh.”
At 32, Bhaichung is fit and fine, and his alertness still makes defenders sweat. Ask him about post-retirement plans and the striker says, “Once I stop playing, I would want to be in a position where you have the decision-making power. “As a player or a coach, one can’t do a lot.” (Agencies)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India’s illegal occupation of independent Sikkim has to be reversed

By himalayanreview
Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...
19 comments
Read more

The Gorkhas - Sons of the Soil, Pride of the Nation

By himalayanreview
 Nanda Kirati Dewan, a journalist from Assam traces the origin of the Gorkhas in India. Many people have misconceptions about the Gorkhas in India - that they are foreigners and have migrated from Nepal. There could not be a greater mistake than this. The Gorkhas are in fact the aborigines of India and they can trace their history back to ancient times. The Gorkha community is the product of Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid assimilation from ages past. As a linguistic group, they can trace their origin back to Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman beginnings. In fact, the Gorkhas consist of both Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid racial groups. In the Mahabharata and Manusmriti names of Khasa are mentioned. They are in fact the Gorkhas. The Gorkhas spoke the language then known as Khaskura Khasas as a community existed in Nepal which it later changed to another ethnic name. The Lichchhavis, one of the aboriginal tribes of India originally lived in the plains of present Nepal. During the early centu...
9 comments
Read more

The legend of April "73" Agitation in Sikkim

By himalayanreview
I was not born when Sikkim got merged with the mighty Indian Union, but being a student of Sikkim History, all that is available to me is a rack of books by different authors and those old folks who had been part of that historical “April ‘73’ Agitation”.  When I go through the history of Sikkim, April ‘73 Agitation holds an important role, mostly as the turning point of the Independent Sikkim and the Sikkim State. The mass demonstrations against the Chogyal rule shocked the 300-year-old monarchy system and ushered in democratic rule in Sikkim.  The agitation was a result “due to big differences which ensued with the demand of repoll in one booth by Kazi Lhendup Dorji and Mr. Krishna Chandra Pradhan, as such the Chogyal had to face the people’s agitation launched by the Joint Action Committee with the tacit blessings of the Government of India. This people’s political movement spearheaded by Kazi Lhendup Dorji finally resulted in Sikkim joining the mainstream as the 22nd State...
2 comments
Read more