Want to ensure opportunities for young talents at Odisha FC, asserts Stuart Baxter

Odisha FC have been very active in the transfer market ahead of the seventh season of the Indian Super League and are making some very good signings when it comes to young Indian footballers. Players like Samuel Lalmuanpuia, Thoiba Singh and Baoringdao Bodo have already been included in the squad and the management has shown interest in giving more chances to the youngsters.

“So, I think, the youth are going to play a very important role in this and for us, it’s vital that we make sure that we give those young players the best possible chance of being able to develop,” the 66-year-old coach said.

“The first impression I get was speaking to the owners, speaking to Rohan, speaking to people within the club. Being in Corona time, this is not when I can fly in and take a look and acclimatize myself with everything. The first stop was the impression I got. The impression was the ambition, it was desire and it was something that is a little bit warm to my heart. Something like in South Africa, in some of the places where social commitment and the commitment to the youth of that area is paramount,” the former Kaizer Chief coach stated.

“The other thing is the help and support and the cooperation of the government. I think that’s also important. The government wants to help and the club wants to repay that by creating something which will be good for our supporters and everybody here in Odisha.”

“The Spanish coaches before me must have given the players a certain flavour and I don’t believe in this breaking everything down and rebuilding it because there’s obviously some good work done. So, I think there’s some good work done and I will retain that good work and hopefully, I will build upon it and hopefully, I will find a way of playing which we all will enjoy and it will give us some result. The people I have spoken to say that the Indian players are ambitious. I had an interesting conversation with Faf du Plesis (the South African cricketer). He said that the Indian cricketers (sportsman) are fantastic when on the front foot when they go on the back foot, they have too much to do. If they don’t do that they will be totally unplayable,” said Baxter.

“So, my job, I believe, is to make sure that my Odisha players feel like mentally on the front foot in any case and I think all of those things will go together into a style. We will bring in together the works that have been done until now and new stuff that we wanna do and describe it in a way that the players feel “Yeah! Let’s go on the front foot.”