Indian Super League 2023 | Hyderabad FC coach Conor Nestor: Big change is possible in weeks, not just years

“The simple way to word it is,” says Conor Nestor with a smile, “I like my team to have the ball and when we lose it, I like to get it back as quickly as possible. I’d like us to play closer to the opponent’s goal than our goal.”

The Hyderabad Football Club’s (HFC) new first team coach, who will be part of his first Indian Super League (ISL) that starts on September 21, puts across this rather simplistic formula as his coaching style. “That’s how I like the game to be played. I have grown up watching teams play like that. Also, coincidentally, that is the style that wins leagues in 80 percent of the countries.”

“If you don’t want to build that style,” he adds, “then you don’t want continuous success. So with the big changeover of players, it will take time. That’s not an excuse. But when I talk about time, I’m not talking about years, I’m talking about weeks.”

The 39-year-old Nestor, a gentle mannered Irishman who joined HFC just a couple of months ago in July, faces his first ISL test on September 30 against East Bengal FC after their initial home game on September 22 against FC Goa got postponed. Goa is managed by Hyderabad’s former coach Manolo Marquez, who led Hyderabad over three seasons, winning the ISL title in 2021-22.

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“It’s an honour to share the touchline with him,” Nestor says of Marquez. “If I wasn’t a fan of his work, I probably would have hesitated to follow him because I was in a comfortable position where I was, where I’d been a part of building something. So I didn’t want to leave to go somewhere where you have to start from scratch. But of course, as soon as the whistle blows, it’s about winning the game.”

Nestor was coaching Cambodian side Svay Rieng FC, where he won the domestic title in his second season, before he joined the ISL team. The former FA Ireland development officer is familiar with Asian football, but is also aware of the difference in football played in India to Cambodia, where he spent five years.

“It’s a big, physical league,” he says of the ISL, “that people watching the football don’t realize. There’s maybe a bias in Europe or a perception that Asian leagues lack physicality. If you watch the Indian Super League, it certainly doesn’t (lack physicality).”

“Indian players, in particular, they’re very good (tactically), but also physically. So that will be the big difference between here and Cambodia. The Cambodian players are really good technically, but they struggle physically.”

When he met the “warm, open, friendly,” group at HFC, Nestor’s first message was to try and relieve people’s fears and tell the players that everyone will get an opportunity. “There is a freshness when somebody new comes. If you haven’t been playing a lot, you feel like maybe now’s your chance. Equally, if you have been playing a lot, you know that you have to prove yourself again. So I think those are the positives that come with a change.”

“Footballers are used to that situation, they are used to continuity in football. They’re not words (football and continuity) that normally go together well. But the club has great continuity. They stuck with a manager in hard moments (Hyderabad finished at the bottom of the points table in 2019-20), and they got the reward for that (they won the title in 2021-22). So I think the players like continuity, because change is often a scary thing.”

Nestor’s first experience at the helm of Hyderabad FC was the Durand Cup in August-September, in which the team finished second in its group with a win, a draw and a loss in three matches. They failed to qualify for the quarter-finals.

It was challenging, Nestor says, as they weren’t able to register the players they wanted (because of a transfer ban by the All India Football Federation – AIFF – on the team). He had studied many of the players on scouting platform Wyscout but admits it’s not the same as doing it in the flesh. “The guys I could see less of in Wyscout, I got to play them in the Durand Cup. So the results, and to a degree the performances, were disappointing. But it was great for me because I found out a lot quickly about some of our younger players—who we need to be creating a pathway for, and who maybe has a lot more work to do,” he says.

“Each day we are getting stronger. It’s a slow process, because 33 percent of the playing squad has changed. But slow progress is still progress, and we’re progressing every day.”