India in good hands of Koevermans, says Gullit

Kolkata: Dutch soccer legend Ruud Gullit on Sunday said Indian football is in safe hands with compatriot Wim Koevermans at the helm but added that the country, ranked 163rd in the world, needed to have better training facilities and more pitches for youth development.

Gullit, who led the Netherlands to the Euro 1988 triumph with a team that also included Koevermans, said he was proud that Indians had adapted to their system. "If you ain`t Dutch, it ain`t much," he uttered the famous Dutch colloquial proverb. "I think Indian football is in good hands. The most important for these coaches is to develop youth football because that is where it all starts. It`s important to have training facilities, the pitches. "Every club there has an amateur team and each team has about three or four pitches. For this reason, every kid has got the opportunity to play in the pitches," he told reporters. However, he admitted that it was difficult for a big country like India to have amateur teams as the infrastructure was not there. "So you have to first think of building pitches, the artificial ones because of the weather." The Dutch star was on a two-day visit to the city. PTI