fish to water and is now trying his hand at basketball as well daughter britney 11 takes karate lessons and remains keen to move beyond her grade four in piano life has been kind to me and i have several people to thank for that nobody more than my parents my father used to get thrilled whenever anyone told him about my goalscoring ability he would instantly share a beer with him even if he was the village poder bread man on his morning rounds mother was forever concerned for me said coutinho his sister meena has religiously maintained his records and newspaper cuttings till his retirement while his two brothers also played their role to perfection coutinho spent 10 years at the boarding school at st anthonys montedeguirim where he was drawn to football playing barefoot when he first trialled for his school team he got his shooting lessons from salvador fernandes salu formerly sesa goa and since then has gone places quite literally nothing came to me on a platter i trained hard all along and had to overcome several obstacles said coutinho who joined dempo engineering in 1988 when he was just 19 and then switched over to salgaocar sports club a year later from hopping on to buses to attend training eating a bhaji pao to satisfy himself shooting a hundred times accurately into the goal and training hard on the beach beyond club hours the extremely talented footballer from the shores of calangute has truly come a long way