Viva denied basic training facilities: Sreedharan

The Viva Kerala team had returned to their home ground at Calicut a few days ago, after their Federation Cup campaign at Assam, hoping to resume their training at the EMS Memorial Stadium, Calicut, but were given no ground to train as the maintenance works at the stadium was being done.

Viva was to train here prior to their away match against Lajong FC at Shillong on January 9, 2010. The management found another training ground at Mankavu, but the ground was already reserved for an inter school football tournament.

“The team is now preparing at the small ground in front of the EMS Stadium. I fear my players may get injured because of playing in such low standard pitch,” Viva Kerala’s veteran coach AM Sreedharan told footballkerala.com.

The team has shifted their stay to a flat 10 Kms away from the city. Even without proper facilities, the team is in good spirits and hopes of performing well in the next matches in the I-League.

“The team has improved their standards as you can see from the Federation Cup matches,” said Viva coach. He seems impressed by the way his team performed at Silchar, Assam. The team took 3 points from 3 matches in the group stages of the Cup. They held the eventual finalists East Bengal and Punjab side JCT to goalless draws while Salgaocar took points away from Viva in the last minutes of a closely competed 1-1 draw.

The main problem for the Kerala team remains its inability to score goals. “We now have a very strong defence that has only conceded once in last 3 matches. But we have to somehow tackle the other problem,” says Sreedharan.

“We have already registered 29 out of the 30 players allowed. So, we won’t be buying a new striker at the moment. Young Sabeeth is nearing his fitness. He has joined the team and started practicing. Hopefully he will be fit in a month,” remarked the coach.

Viva Kerala sits last in the table with only 4 points. “It is quite early to reach conclusions by looking at the current league standings. If we win 2 or 3 matches that are coming up, we will rise to a much higher position in the table,” the coach said.

In their next match, Viva Kerala will be playing a club which gained promotion with them last season. But after few matches in the Indian football season, Viva and Lajong seems far apart when comparing their standards. The Kerala team will board their flight to Shillong on the 5th of January.

“Lajong plays very well. They are a good team. They perform better than Viva because they have got backing from some big brands like Nokia and Adidas. We don’t have it and we won’t have it in the near future. Such is the culture here in the south.” The coach continues that, “Nobody here are ready to invest their money on football or any other sport other than cricket. The situation seems to be gradually changing and I hope it does!”

Sreedharan also expressed his ambition to see another Kerala team in the next year’s I-League along with his own team. “We have a good bunch of teams from Kerala right now. Teams like SBT, Chandni FC and Titanium looks very promising. I hope at least one of them make it to the main stage.”

Adwaidh R for footballkerala.com

From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Friday 1 January 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.