Ex-Manchester United and England winger Steve Coppell reveals all about life in the Indian Super League with Jamshedpur
Sponsored by
STEVE COPPELL best sums up what it is like to live in India by describing his walk to work.
The ex-Crystal Palace and Reading boss is out here for a second season in the Indian Super League — taking charge of newly-formed Jamshedpur FC, having managed Kerala Blasters last year.
His first match is at NorthEast United on Saturday. It comes the day after the campaign's curtainraiser between Teddy Sheringham's ATK and the Blasters, now bossed by Rene Meulensteen.
SunSport met Coppell at the ISL's official launch in Kolkata to get the lowdown on life as a manager in the world's second most-populated country.
Smiling as he paints the scene, Coppell, 62, explained: "Our hotel in Jamshedpur is pretty much on a dual carriageway.
"We have to cross that to get to the training ground and that can be a challenge. It should be straightforward but where you are expecting traffic to come from one direction, you'll find a car going against the traffic, driving the other direction!
"Then the other day, I saw four cows, two goats and two horses just walking down the dual carriageway. Not together — separately.
"When you see some of the things for the first time, you do think, 'My word, what's going on'? It's certainly unique!"
FELL HELL Marouane Fellaini rejects Manchester United contract to stun Jose Mourinho
Coppell, though, has found the cultural differences a doddle compared to the actual act of managing an ISL club.
He took Kerala to the final of the competition last year, where they missed out on the title on penalties to Atletico de Kolkata — now known as ATK.
But Coppell insisted: "I think it's one of the toughest managerial challenges you can get.
"You have to compile a squad in a relatively short space of time.
"You get 15 Indian players in a draft — and not all of those are players you necessarily wanted. Then you have got to try to sign eight international players to complement your 15 Indians.
"And when you look at your eventual squad, you find your 20-odd players have all been playing for 20-odd teams so, inevitably, they've been playing 20-odd different ways.
"So your job in just five or six weeks of pre-season is to try and get all those different styles and personalities and nationalities to become one team with a common heartbeat.
"Then you have to live with each other for five months.
"If you are in England and you have a ruck with a player, you go home — and the time and distance heals things a little bit. You see them the next day and you start again.
"But here, you train in the morning, you have a little bit of a ruck and you are sitting opposite them at lunch. Last year the training facilities were also a challenge.
"Sometimes we found ourselves having to train on pitches with ten-year-old astroturf. The whole thing is just a challenge in so many different ways."
The popularity of football in India is, as you would expect, still some way behind cricket.
Indeed, the only Coppell quotes from Sunday's media day to appear in Kolkata's Telegraph newspaper on Monday were his thoughts on the upcoming Ashes.
But he was greeted like an old friend by the local press at the ISL event, held at the same five-star Kolkata hotel where Sheringham's ATK are based.
And the ex-Manchester United and England winger was hugely popular last year at Kerala, who are owned by cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Coppell admitted: "I would pop out to the shop to buy something and it would take me half an hour because it was always, 'Selfie, selfie'.
"But you are happy to stop for them because the fans were always very respectful. The Kerala region is proud of the team and it's a hotbed for football.
"They got 60,000 fans at games last year and they are all in the stadium two to three hours before kick-off."
It remains to be seen what sort of support his new club Jamshedpur will get. But there will probably not be much of an away following.
That is because their nearest airport is a four-hour coach ride away!
Coppell explained: "For our first game on Saturday, we started our travel on Tuesday.
"It is a drive to Ranchi airport, an overnight stay there and then the following day a flight to Guwahati — which is where the game is being played."
Expectations are not high for Coppell's new franchise — owned by global juggernaut Tata Steel.
Even their star foreign player Andre Bikey — who has been reunited with his old Reading boss — joked this week that everyone thinks they will be "c**p".
CLAIM YOUR FREE £30 BET Check out this new sign up offer from Sun Bets
But Coppell said: "It will be history whatever we do.
"That attracted me to come back. Everything is brand new. Work is still being done on the stadium.
"Until we play three to four games, we don't know how it will pan out."
What Coppell does know, however, is that his days in English football are finished.
He famously became boss of Crystal Palace aged only 28 in 1984, taking them to the top flight and the 1990 FA Cup final against Manchester United — which they lost in a replay.
But he has now not managed a club back home since Bristol City seven years ago.
Coppell added: "The wheel has turned. It's a long time since I've managed there and I've got no real ambition to go back.
"I'm enjoying being out here — doing something totally different like this is more appealing to me now."
