Atlético de Kolkata Technical Director Saharsh Parekh shares his thoughts on the importance of the tie-up with Atlético de Madrid and how the local club can benefit from it. Here are some excerpts from an exclusive interview with indiansuperleague.com…How do you plan to give back to Kolkata? All the Indian promoters have been part of Kolkata for their entire life. They always got something from the city. Our whole idea when we bought the franchise was to give something back to the ‘city of joy’. Something that can unite the city, where families can watch the game and bring everyone together. The passion that Kolkata has for football is immense, and it’s incredible."Our whole idea when we bought the franchise was to give something back to the ‘city of joy’."Saharsh ParekhWhat sort of contribution are you expecting from Sourav Ganguly?‘Dada’ takes so much interest in all of this. Before a cricketer he was a footballer. People in Kolkata and all over India look up to him because of his aggressive style of captaincy. He was one of my idols. In real life he is a very calm personality. It shows that you can be aggressive on the field and you can be a gentleman off it as well and that’s what we expect from our players. His passion and leadership qualities are definitely going to show up on the pitch.How will you engage the football fans of Kolkata? We have very engaging social media platforms in place. Our media and marketing roll-out is very centric to the people of Kolkata. We want to bring them in and to make them realize that this is a team for the city. We have signed creative and attacking players whom they will like a lot. Hopefully. that should bring everyone to the stadium. And we have Atlético de Madrid, La Liga winners, on our side who got the better of Real Madrid and Barcelona. We want to uplift the people through our style of football.Can you explain Atlético de Madrid’s role in the team?We are partners in this franchisee. We are the only team that have an international football club as partners, the rest of the teams are probably having technical tie-ups. Since inception, we have been together as a team. The whole idea of grassroots development of football was to nurture our own talent, bring them up through the ranks and put them into the first team. The best part about ‘Atléti’ is that they keep on churning out new players every now and then. Fernando Torres, Sergio Agüero, Radamel Falcao, Diego Costa etc. It’s incredible how they do it, year in and year out. They have Diego Simeone as their manager, he was a people’s champion and is a fan favourite. Atlético de Madrid are a team of the people, that’s how they are known, and we want Atlético de Kolkata to be a team of the people.Can you give us a peek into your love for football?I am a crazy football fan. I follow a lot of international football. I am a Manchester United supporter in England and it’s Atlético de Madrid in Spain. Atlético invited us to come to Lisbon to watch the UEFA Champions League final and that was an incredible experience. Even though they went 1-4 down, all you could hear was ‘Atléti, Atléti, Atléti’, that’s the kind of reaction I am looking forward to in Kolkata.When it comes to Indian football, which players have impressed you? Climax Lawrence, Baichung Bhutia, Sunil Chhetri, Jeje Lalpekhlua, Denzil Franco, Arnab Mondal – he’s one of the best defenders in the country and I’ve heard very highly about Cavin Lobo also.How is the ISL going to impact Indian football?The ISL is well packaged and we are now going to see soccer at a higher level. We are getting quality international players. When you play with players at higher level, your quality automatically increases and we are expecting our Indian players to raise their standards. Atlético de Kolkata players can look up to Luis García and his performances throughout his career and can learn from how he trains and plays.
