Shepherding a well-oiled unit

ONGC have been unbeaten since Santosh Kashyap took charge as chief coach five matches ago

It's fascinating how gentle tinkering in one department can have a rippling effect on the performance of the entire team.

When Santosh Kashyap took charge as the chief coach of ONGC, his objective was to avoid relegation. That would seem as an easy task, more so because Kashyap was coming from a club where the target was nothing less than the I-League title.

But he came to ONGC at a time when the club was in middle of nowhere. The Mumbai-based side, who are playing their home matches in New Delhi this season, was staring at relegation mid-way through the I-League season. They had managed just one win in 10 matches, scored only 11 goals and conceded nearly twice, were at the bottom of the 14-team league and, to make matters worse, Subrata Bhattacharya stepped down as their head coach.

Unlike the coaches who often introduce changes aplenty to steady a sinking ship when handed the responsibility, Kashyap decided against shaking up the entire squad. The master tactician realised the team wasn't doing much wrong technically, but ironed out the one flaw which he thought was the reason for the team's poor downfall. "I think they were making a lot of mistakes when defending. They were making too many back passes and not clearing the ball, which always presented the opposition with a scoring opportunity," Kashyap said.

Kashyap straightaway got down to business. ONGC were shuffling between the 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 formation in their first 10 matches. In an attempt to make the defence more compact, Kashyap opted for a three-man defence and crowded the midfield, packing in five men. "I have always believed scoring becomes difficult when you have a compact defence. I did the same with the team and the results started coming in."

... contd.

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