India will qualify for the 2034 FIFA World Cup, according to a Football Manager simulation

India’s 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign was a disaster

It is a question that has mystified many a people – how can a country with a population of over a billion not even come close to qualifying for the FIFA World Cup? Many factors are at play and one of them is the absolute paucity of infrastructure at the grassroots level and the complete lack of world-class coaches who can rear the next generation of Indian footballers. But what if that were not the case?

Wynnerrr, a popular Youtube channel for Football Manager enthusiasts tried to answer this question. With the help of a mod on Football Manager 15, he gave all Indian clubs across all three leagues the best of facilities for scouting and training young talent, such as state-of-the-art training facilities, top youth academies, exceptional junior coaching and extensive youth recruitment. After making these modifications, he proceeded to simulate the gameplay 25 years and assessed the result in between.

Before seeing what the results were, there are a few clarifications that need to be made. Firstly, the game uses three leagues as part of the Indian club system – the I-League, the I-League 2nd division and the Indian Super League. All these leagues function simultaneously during the season and the ISL teams are seen as ‘proper’ clubs, with academies, instead of corporate franchises. Secondly, FM has a concept of ‘regens’, which refers to fictional young players who are developed by clubs on the basis of their prestige, youth system, coaching staff and of course, a miniscule factor of randomness.

Thirdly, one must understand the significance of the Football Manager game and its accuracy with respect to real life situations. FM is one of the most popular PC games in the world and was developed by Sports Interactive. The company has a huge network of over 1300 scouts who watch football in over 51 countries all over the world, who attend real-life matches and training sessions to file extensive reports on players and teams, which are then reflected in the game itself. There are stories of die-hard fans who have been hired by football clubs on the basis of their FM success.

Last year, Sports Interactive signed a deal with sports performance analyst Prozone to supply data for a new online application which will allow clubs to search an international database of players, with each entry providing detailed performance, contract and biographical stats, that too at all levels of the game. In 2008, Everton signed an official deal to use the FM database to search for players and staff. Manchester United legend and former Cardiff City manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted that the game helped him to prepare for life as a manager.

Thus, the implications of the simulation can quite possibly come true. It is quite a fascinating hypothesis – with world class coaching and facilities, what can India do in the future and when can we expect to reap the results of this investment! Of course, such infrastructure is not built overnight and there are other limitations as well, but it is quite clear that the results shown in the video do represent the opportunity cost of not focussing on developing the game in the country i.e. it shows what we are missing out on while we neglect grassroot development.

India are a generation away from the World Cup, if proper steps are taken

After the first ten years of simulation, India’s ranking jumped from 143 to 51st in the world and there are Indian players who are playing in Europe with the likes of PSG, Juventus, Inter, Shakhtar Donetsk and Genoa. The national team gets knocked out of the World Cup qualifiers as they finish second in their group, losing two games to Iraq. The reputation of the domestic leagues also spikes and there is a general improvement among all teams.

Fast forward ten years again and India are ranked 17th in the world! The regens created play for some of the top clubs in Europe like Juventus, Barcelona, Inter, Schalke, Chelsea, Roma, etc and are valued at enormous sums of money. In 2034, the national team actually does play in the FIFA World Cup for the first time, where they beat Ivory Coast 8-1 and progress to the knockouts as well. Indian clubs now have automatic slots in the AFC Champions League, with the Delhi Dynamos winning the AFC Cup in 2026.

Finally, we come to 2039, where India are 3rd in the world rankings. And quite stunningly, the major reasons for it are a semi-final place finish in the 2038 FIFA World Cup and victory in the 2039 Asian Cup. In the domestic scene, Delhi Dynamos finish runners-up twice in the AFC Champions League.

These facts and figures may be hypothetical and have no connect to reality. But, they surely show us a situation of ‘what can happen’ and ‘what will happen’, if the situation of the sport remains the way it is. It is only with top-class facilities that India could qualify for the World Cup in 2034 for the first time in its history, which suggests that it takes over twenty years after investing in infrastructure to finally bear fruit. After just four years in 2038, India finish fourth in the World Cup, which shows that once the process is underway, growth becomes exponential.

But alas! The current situation is not as rosy as in this hypothesis. With poor Government support and an uncertain league structure, the future for Indian football does not look very good and it might be decades after 2034 for the reality of India qualifying for the World Cup to even occur. Everyone, including fans, have to play their role to perfection and must believe in the future of Indian football so that we can finally awaken the sleeping giant and compete with the best in the world.

Here’s the video where this analysis is done -