MARCOS FALOPA’S short stint as technical director of local football seems par for the course.
The record shows that normally he doesn’t stay one place too long.
Maybe he epitomises the old adage of a rolling stone gathering no moss.
He left his previous job with East Bengal before coming to Barbados because of “private problems]”. He reportedly jumped ship here because of “personal reasons”.
Why should we have expected anything different when the facts speak for themselves?
Were we more enthralled by the fact that he’s Brazilian and because of his nationality he would conjure up a programme that would bring us out of the football doldrums?
The truth is that contemporary technical directors don’t come cheap so he was in the range we could afford.
To his credit, Falopa was well qualified for the job. He is a FIFA accredited adviser and coaching instructor. He holds a Bachelor’s in sports and physical education, a Master’s in football from the University of Sao Paulo plus a UEFA Pro Coaching Licence.
For the record, the longest tenure Falopa had was between 1995-2002 when he served as CONCACAF’s technical director, based in Trinidad.
Generally, when you peruse his resume, it shows that in recent years he has done several assignments that lasted between six months and a year and no more than two years.
Using the turn of the century as a sample, he served as technical director to South Africa (2002-2004); technical manager of Oman (2005-2006); he had a stint in Myanmar (2007-2009); worked at Italian Football Academy (2011); coaching director in Brazil (2012); coached East Bengal in Indian League (2013) and of course his recent stint in Barbados started last year and ended last week.
Falopa might be best described as a football nomad who has the scholarship, expertise and experience to lay foundations but never stays long enough to build and enhance them to the point where his clients are satisfied.
This, in my opinion, doesn’t make him out to be bad at what he does but it leaves you to wonder why he never seems to be around long enough to finish the job he began.
And let’s be honest and fair, Falopa was doing as well and better than some of his predecessors in a similar role in local football.
Several people I have spoken to gave him top marks for the courses he organised for various groups here. They believe that he was on top of his game teaching and trading his technical knowledge with participants.
In other words, he was fulfilling part of his duties as technical director. Therefore, he should have been allowed to serve in his substantive role instead of letting him become the virtual national coach also. Had he worked solely as technical director he might still be in Barbados.
Falopa’s double duties may have retarded the prospects of Kenville Layne putting into practice the knowledge he has accumulated over the years at junior and senior level and from the many certified courses he has attended.
In fact, Layne looks like the one the association will have to turn to to prepare the seniors for next year’s Caribbean Football Union’s competition because he was Falopa’s assistant and a promotion seems in order.
Yet again, though, it has to be said that the Brazilian’s record as coach was commendable. He had mixed fortunes in the warm-up matches prior to the start of the World Cup qualifiers and the team was doing well until the Hadan Holligan situation came into play and FIFA sent Barbados packing.
It can be argued that he had more friendly internationals in preparation for a major tournament than any of his predecessors but this precedent puts pressure on the association to give the next coach the same kind of playing field Falopa was given. Respect will have to be given to the home boy once similar funding is available.
The previous coach, Colin “Potato” Forde, was asked to get a team in competitive mode for the qualifiers of the 2014 World Cup and then last year’s CFU Cup without similar terms and conditions as Falopa. He resigned in frustration after we failed to qualify for the finals.
The moral of this story is that we must give the same level of respect to our own coaches that we give foreigners and provide them with the same magnitude of ammunition for battle because the responsibilities are the same for all to get positive results.
The Falopa model had the potential to pay good dividends but yet another aborted stint leaves that in the realm of mere speculation.
• Andi Thornhill is an experienced, award-winning sports journalist. Email: [email protected]
