panaji when pradhyum reddy took up his first job in indian football at shillong lajong fc in 2012 dempo sports club set the standarddempo won the national league a record five times between 2005 and 2012 five of their players were regular starters in the 11 for the national team and they seemed to have the best foreign players with ranti martins and roberto mendes da silva beto leading the waynobody could poach their players the club matched the best salary retained their stars and almost everyone including star sunil chhetri dreamed of donning the blue of dempoif you look at the history of dempo ten years ago this was a dream job said reddy the newlyappointed ceo at the club armandos teams were brilliant to play against and you measured yourself as a coach in games against dempo beating them was like a feather in your cap when we were at bengaluru fc a lot of our success was by beating dempo it was almost like the changing of the guard those timesthese are different times a different decadethese days the club only plays in the goa pro league having opted out of the ileague in protest against the federations nonexistent roadmap and damaging policies so why does a coach who has been with the toptier indian super league isl for the last couple of years and been a television pundit too take up this almost unusual assignmentfor me when i moved to india ive always wanted to try and be at a place thats moving forward lajong was one such case when i went to the northeast there was big crowds watching local games and their matches were sold out so i felt thats the place where indian football is growingdsk shivajians and bengaluru were also in the forefront of what they were doing and bengaluru proved that at dempo the way the ownership and management wants to go and the direction the club wants to take is exciting you want to be a part of that journey now to try and bring back the glory days said reddylike most neutrals the experienced coach has been in love with goan football too in the past he has come close to taking up a role with three of goas top clubs although its only now that he has made the switchreddy explains whythere is so much football here he said there is under14 under18 under20 goa pro league it helps when you want to be involved in football and work throughout the season i enjoyed that in the northeast that did not exist in a lot of other places reddy has coached at shillong lajong in the national football league nfl been an assistant to ashley westwood with bengaluru fc in ileague taken up coaching advisory and technical director roles with fc pune city delhi dynamos and odisha fc in isl but at dempo its an allencompassing role as ceofor the unawares the ceo position may look like unfamiliar