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Former Indian cricket captain and co-owner of Atletico de Kolkata Sourav Ganguly on Monday said the presence of eminent foreign players in the Indian Super League (ISL) will help the Indian players raise their playing standards and improve Indian football in the years to come.
"We picked a lot of city-bred players. Also foreign players are in our team. Out of the 22 odd players, eight of them are foreigners. The foreigners' presence will help the local players to raise their own standards while the quality of the game will also stand to benefit", Ganguly said in Kolkata.
"Going by my experience, my 1996 my debut at Lord's definitely helped me become a good cricketer. I had a fabulous Test series. I have immensely benefitted from seeing the foreigners playing there. My batting went to a different level," he said.
Referring to the Indian Premier League T20 cricket tournament, he said earlier the teams used to have players from the respective cities which changed after three years of its beginning.
"Now you see Gautam Gambhir is the captain of KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders) while (Mahendra Singh) Dhoni who is from Ranchi is playing for Chennai Super Kings," he said.
"We will try to pick players from the city and strike a right balance", Ganguly said.
Stating that Atletico's vision is to make the game a success, Ganguly said,"It is very exciting that something new will start from October 12 when the city team (Atletico) meets Mumbai City FC".
"This is a football crazy city and cricket took over from 1995. But football passion here," he said.
"Atletico will be an additional team along with East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. In the last derby between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, the turnout was one lakh. I feel the same will happen on October 12."
He said that the Atletico de Kolkata players are on a month-long training session at Madrid.
"We sent the team there for training under Atletico Madrid. We plan to give probably the best to our players and we plan to reach the top." he said.
The city team has roped in Luis Garcia of Spain as the marquee player and Antonio Lopez Habas, also from the same country, was appointed the head coach.