First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"Before that I wanted to be a coach, but I didn’t know how big I could be as a coach."
"If you really want something and you put all your effort in it together as a group, then anything is possible."
"I never punish. I never shout. I never swear. What are they afraid of?"
"I’m Dutch so I am clear in what I want. I think the fact I am maybe different – that is what they have felt. They are not used to women being direct."
"Because I’m a female coach, I’m undermined. A male coach who treated their players so well and put himself on the barricades would be praised. I did my job protecting players."
"If I would have been a male, this would have never, ever been an issue."
"I took care of the players. I’m direct. I’m opinionated, but nobody touches my players."
"I am the only coach in the world who’s always at the subs training because I know it’s awkward as a sub."
"It’s only a woman that can be criticised like that. Do you think Pep Guardiola would get this on his plate?"
"It’s my job to get the best programme on the pitch."
"Where in men's football would a player be given be given the opportunity, who's only played so few minutes (for their club), to go to the World Cup and be apart of it?"
"Five times I became coach of the year. Do you think this is because of my nice glasses or something?"
"In my opinion, no head coach in the world would accept interference of the executives in technical football affairs."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.