Bob Houghton —the man who has seen it all

AFP/Doha

Houghton: passionate about the game

During a coaching career spanning five decades and a dozen countries, Bob Houghton probably thought he had seen it all in football.
Then the Englishman took charge of India.
"I’ve enjoyed all the different coaching jobs I’ve had, but this is the toughest one,” the 63-year-old said, a day after his side were thumped 5-2 by Bahrain, ending any faint hope they had of reaching the Asian Cup last eight.
They were hammered again on Tuesday, 4-1 by South Korea, as their campaign ended without a point and 13 goals conceded in three games.
Houghton, a former Fulham player, is best known for taking unheralded Swedish club Malmo to the European Cup final in 1979, where they lost 1-0 to Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest.
Houghton cut his teeth in coaching in altogether less glorious surroundings—at little-known English minnows Maidstone United, where he was a young player-manager.
After Malmo, he went on to coach the national sides of Uzbekistan and China, and club sides ranging from Europe to the Middle East and Asia, including several teams in China.
Asked by AFP if the high point was the European Cup final—what is now the Champions League—Houghton was surprisingly hesitant.
"I don’t know, but I suppose so,” he said. "It is the biggest game in Europe, so I suppose that would be about right.”
He may be in his 60s, but Houghton shows no signs of slowing.
On a bright morning the day after his India side were humbled by Bahrain, he was out on a training pitch in a Doha suburb—shorts and boots on—taking full charge of the session.
There is clearly a great deal of respect for him from his players, several of whom say India’s first appearance at the Asian Cup in 27 years is solely down to him.
Coaching India, at a tournament in the Middle East, is all a far cry from his humble beginnings.
"You never know in football,” he said, any trace of emotion hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.
"You don’t know what will happen six months down the line in football, no coach does, it’s just not like that in football. It’s all about timing.
"I could’ve stayed at Malmo all my life—I got offered a 10-year contract.”
His passion for the game is still burning strong—it would have to be to take on perennial underachievers India so late in his career. He seems almost to be on a one-man crusade to revolutionise football in the country. "There’s an inertia in India that makes it very difficult to get things moving,” he said. "We can’t progress without the football infrastructure, but it all seems to take a long time.”
He added: "Hopefully we can get some infrastructure built, which is key for us to move the game forward”, referring to issues such as the lack of modern stadiums, a competitive league, training facilities and organised youth teams.
Despite having the world’s second-biggest population at 1.2bn people, India, where cricket is the main sport, have remained a footballing backwater. They are ranked 144 in the FIFA rankings, on a par with St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in the Caribbean, which has a population of just over 100,000.
But Houghton, appointed to the job in 2006, is meeting the challenge head-on. Nor does he seem to have lost any of his passion.
"We need to go back to India with our heads held high,” he said after seeing his team well beaten 4-0 by Australia in their first game. One Indian journalist pointed out that the Indian players were smaller than those in Europe, and even many of the other teams in Doha.
But Houghton said despite India’s huge population, there was little scouting for talented youngsters who could then be nurtured into top players, including being given the right diet to make them grow.
And he cannot do it all on his own.
"Where are we going to find young players?,” he said.
"Take Wayne Rooney. Do you think Fabio Capello will go out and scout for Wayne Rooney? That’s how players are found.
"You don’t get the manager to go and scout in the bushes somewhere.”