Indian Football. Review on Soccer

People expect India to win the SAFF Cup. With all due respect to Bangladesh, Pakistan and the other teams, India is the best team. My question is whether the team really gets to progress from beating these types of opposition. Ok there are the Asian qualifiers in 2009 as well but if India is going to make it to a World Cup or even come close to qualifying, they need to vary the opposition they play much more. I know it is not easy at all to get African teams over to Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta or Goa but the AIFF needs to plan some tournaments inviting opposition over that India can have a decent contest.

How about East African teams like Kenya, Tanzania or Zambia? They have big potential and play a different style which may or may not be better than our football but they don't have professional leagues like in India. Something has to be done by the AIFF to generate more interest in the Indian team at home. 2009 could be a decisive year when football supporters want to see some substantial progress. Bob Houghton is working hard to improve the team but is he getting the support that a coach needs to improve a side?

The AIFF must realise there is no point in playing teams who will comprehensively beat us by 6,7 or 8 goals or who India will beat by the same scores. Main problem India isn't doing well in football is because lack of exposure. Not many people take football. Most of them take cricket. Maybe millions of those who take cricket are better in football. Plus India have 100% viewers in cricket and how much do India have in football. Barely something in West Bengal, Northeast, Goa and Kerala. Seeing T&T qualify is surely a slap in the face to the Indian federation.

Such a big country like India with all the economic backings, India can’t even make it to the world cup let alone winning it. I wish I was born again as a footballer with eleven Brazil players alongside me anyway if I was a sport minister I would ban cricket for 2 years, and take it from there. Both Trinidad & Tobago and Bahrain were fighting for a spot in the World Cup (Germany '06). The population of T &T is a little over 1 million and Bahrain has a population of around 700,000!!

Compare this to the Indian population of over 1 billion!! Why isn’t India even close to approaching a berth in the World Cup? Why does India suck in every sport that matters to the average person (not talking about lame Cricket)?? India has no excuses when they are constantly embarrassed by tiny countries. As far as improving international rankings are concerned I guess the only way to do so would be by playing better teams (e.g. the Koreas and Japans of Asia and maybe some African nations). Playing locally and small tournaments on the subcontinent will only help so much. Bigger tournaments cost a lot of money and are not viable as was learnt in India with the Nehru Cups.

Maybe it might be worth wile for the other local football bodies to try and get at least one of their top teams into the NFL. I don't know if thats feasible but I guess that is an option. As the standard of the Indian football players improve they should play in the European leagues. Hence the incentive to a promising 16-18 year old player is that if he can take advantage of the system he can one day play in the European league and make a lot of money and earn glory. Under the current system none of the Indian players have a chance to make it to the European league (Bhutia excluded).

Getting NRIs into the Indian football team has both short and long term benefits but before we go about looking for good NRI players India need three things.Well one of the things would be I guess is first to have a viable and vibrant local league and the NFL in India is slowly on its way to becoming. A more stable league with a few foreign players involved in it. IMO unless a country or region has a strong local league (e.g. Korea and Japan and even Iran, Saudi etc have strong leagues). India seems to be doing fairly well as far as strengthening its local league and now there are other foreign players from Sri Lanka etc that play in the league. Once there is a strong local league (both first and second division at least) the talent will have place to develop.

I can think of two models to improve Indian football team.

Model # 1: Follow the lead of South Korean hockey team. South Korea took about 200 men who they felt could become good hockey players and worked with them around the year. They got top level coaches, physical therapists, psychologists, etc and chose the best from these 200 players to form the Korean team. The South Korean team played teams from other countries to improve their skills and now are one of the best in the world. Field hockey is not a popular sport in South Korea but they have a great team.

Model #2: Follow the lead of the American baseball system. Instead of having only a National Football League in India let the football teams in India have ’’farm teams’’ or AAA, AA and A football leagues where the NFL teams can develop young players. India needs to get proper coaching, physical conditioning, proper medical help for injuries, etc at a young age of the players.

I am sure that the British coach of the Indian team had to research a lot of skills to the Indian team players. If India can take 16 to 18 year old players and make them play in the single ’’A’’ football league and as their skills improve with proper coaching then move them up the ladder to the NFL league. These teams at A, AA, or AAA levels should have proper coaches, etc furnished by the NFL teams just like the American baseball system.