Letter to the Editor   No wins without scoring goals |13 July 2022

Most local Premiership clubs are continuously spending money to recruit attacking players, precisely from neighbouring Madagascar so as to be more competitive and challenge for silverwares. I do feel this practice will continue.

Many will share my view that over the last five years, the recruitment level has not lived up to expectations. I wonder who is given the scouting role – a teammate himself or a management staff?

This is because for a while now, I do not see any particular standout foreigner who is far superior than our locals. This has nothing to do with form and confidence but a question of ‘quality’. There has been a decline in consistency, desire, dedication and mentality aspects in many of these expatriates. Clubs should take note of this.

Don’t we feel that this is detrimental to our football and its future? Very good local forwards are in very short supply and demand for too long now. There is no way you can win a football game without scoring.

Going back to the 1980s, we have had quite a good number of exciting strikers in the mould of Frank ‘Ringo’ Marengo, Bernard Dorasamy, Danny ‘Papin’ Rose, the late Lionel Ravinia, Gerard Corallie, to name a few.

And following the return of sports clubs, we have had Alpha Baldé, Philip Zialor, Ralph ‘Tiapout’ Jean-Louis and Wilnes Brutus. These were exciting players to watch and they gave their very best to their clubs and country.

And from there where did it all go wrong? While the Seychelles football national team has been struggling for goals, it is mostly the foreigners who are getting the headlines bagging the goals and winning matches for their teams in our top flight division. This may prove good for these clubs in the short-term but very damaging to our national team’s evolution.

I do believe that the quota for foreign players should be revised if we want to maybe see some improvement in the end product of our football. The local players should seize this opportunity and prove to us that there is life after Baldé, Zialor and others. Maybe we should give thoughts in adding an experimental and reputed former goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and striker to the national team to give a helping hand. Time is not on our side but we can bounce back.

Yours faithfully

Derek Pothin