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India take on Nepal in an international friendly at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune on August 31. This game is a warm-up for the National Team's World Cup Qualification match against Iran, a competition that India already look to be heading out of, due to two defeats in as many matches.
A lot has been said since the last time the Indian team played a competitive match. The issue of Players of Indian Origin was raised when a lowly ranked Guam team, exercising their right to field players who were born in the United States, comprehensively beat India in the World Cup Qualifiers.
However, the underlying cause of India’s struggle on the international stage could be put down to the amount of time the players spend together in the National Team. If you compare the number of matches the National team has played in the last two years, the results do not look surprising.
India’s group in the Qualifiers consist of Iran, Oman, Guam and Turkmenistan. While Oman and Iran are definitely better teams than India, be it in terms of personnel or performance, Guam and Turkmenistan should have ideally seen India in the same light. But without any pre-match preparation for the qualifiers, Guam saw that India were there for the taking and didn’t think twice before taking the subcontinent team to the cleaners.
| Team | Games Played since January 2014 |
| Iran | 19 |
| Oman | 25 |
| India | 6 |
| Guam | 12 |
| Turkmenistan | 6 |
India’s empty footballing calendar
Cliches in football such as team spirit exist for a reason. There are intangibles in football that cannot be ignored. Team with lower rankings have defeated highly favoured teams many a times for us to ignore the basics of football.
Since 2014 Iran have played 19 international matches in 20 months which almost makes it an international match a month. Guam have played twelve matches in the same period while Oman have competed in an incredible 25 matches in 20 months. Keeping in mind that the team did not participate in the FIFA World Cup, that number is an outstanding achievement for the nation.
Not all matches were played against highly rated teams because you don't always play a team who are better than you. But the sheer number of matches played by the team together gives the manager an idea of his best team and the players get used to playing alongside each other.
The centre backs are able to build a partnership as they know how to react in a particular situation. The right back knows when the winger will drop back for support and when he will not. These might sound like minute details but they are the difference between winning and losing.
India, on the other hand, have played just six matches during this period and if the World Cup Qualifiers are ignored, India have played just two friendlies in two years. TWO! Which is one international friendly in one year, so is it really a surprise that India struggle when it comes to the big time?
The last time India played a friendly was in October 2014 against Palestine in a 2-3 loss. This match was played well before Stephen Constantine was given charge of the team and the Nepal friendly is the first we will play since then.
India’s highest goal scorer Sunil Chhetri while speaking to Sportskeeda talked about the importance of friendlies and how it would help improve the performances of the team. He said, “We really should play more friendlies. That way, the team will gel better and perform more consistently. Also, our rankings won't dip if we play regularly.”
“It's really sad that we ended up losing both games, to be honest though I was pretty satisfied with the way we played against Oman; however there isn't any excuse for how bad we were against Guam,” Chhetri added.
Stephen Constantine’s take on Indian domestic league football
Stephen Constantine criticised the concept of two leagues stating that we need to change and play football at the same time as the rest of the world. In most countries across the globe, the domestic season starts in August and ends in April/May. Along with the league, the clubs play in domestic and continental cups in between.
Every two months the clubs release players to take part in international friendlies or qualifiers for major events. In India, however, the league starts in December and within a month of the league’s start the players had to play, in the now suspended, Federation Cup. The league ends in May and then they switch allegiances and play in the Indian Super League, which is basically a cup competition in league format where players have to play at least two games in a week’s time.
Stephen Constantine highlighted this issue in a recent interview criticising the two-league format and even claiming that “Indian Football is already at death’s door.” Sunil Chhetri talked along the same lines as his manager stating, “The fact that we played these games (the qualifiers) in the off-season perhaps didn't help our cause. We can't however afford to use that as an excuse.”
“Before the next game vs Iran, we have a scheduled match against Nepal and that should help us prepare better. A win will bolster our morale and keep our spirits high ahead of what promises to be a massive game,” he concluded.
It is high time we change the way football is handled in India or else Constantine’s prediction might be right and the grim reaper might throw Indian Football into the abyss.
