The Indian national football team entered the top 100 of the FIFA rankings earlier today. It is a 21-year high for the Blue Tigers, who enjoyed a view from the top 100 last when they were ranked 94th in February 1996.
To add more context to India’s achievement, they were ranked 173rd as recently as March 2015. Hence, to jump 73 places in a little more than two years is a commendable feat for coach Stephen Constantine and his group.
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Long road ahead
However, despite all the positivity emanating from India’s latest FIFA rankings jump, one needs to remain circumspect regarding the national team’s standing in world football at the moment. Indian football is at a transitional stage, where the long-term future of the sport in the country is contingent on what happens in the immediate future.
It is worth mentioning here that India didn’t even have to play a single match in the month of April to enter the top 100. That alone shows the loopholes in FIFA’s ranking system, which can be gamed to rise up the ladder, as India have done so far.
One little glance at India’s position in the latest FIFA rankings will bring to notice the sight of tiny St. Kitts and Nevis sitting just above the Blue Tigers in 98th place. If you’re not aware, St. Kitts and Nevis is a tiny country in the Caribbean islands which houses a population of a little over 50,000. That is about India’s population divided 26,000 times.
It isn’t that St. Kitts and Nevis are celebrating their 98th rank. The Sugar Boyz have moved up one place since April, but they achieved their highest ever FIFA ranking in March this year when they shot up to 73rd before dropping 26 places to 99th in April. As a consequence of their consistent top 100 ranking since 2016, St. Kitts and Nevis have managed to play friendlies against lower tier European teams like Andorra and Estonia in the recent past and also have two games coming up in June against Armenia and Georgia.
Lessons to learn
With a population of threadbare proportions, St. Kitts and Nevis have done relatively well compared to India. And that’s where the Indian national team should take cues and learn some lessons. As India’s captain and all-time record goalscorer Sunil Chhetri noted after last month’s rankings came out, “I am proud of the team. But what I meant was we should not get carried away,” India cannot afford to get ahead of themselves just because they have broken into the top 100 in the world.
For a better perspective, a 100th place means almost 50 percent of the world’s football playing nations are ahead of India, and the Blue Tigers are yet to appear in a FIFA World Cup. There are plenty of things that still need to get done by India rather than resting on their laurel of entering the top 100, and St. Kitts and Nevis serves up an example to follow.
There isn’t much difference between India’s average FIFA ranking over the years and the Sugar Boyz’s. India’s average ranking since the FIFA world ranking creation is 134, while St. Kitts and Nevis’s is 131. Like India, St. Kitts and Nevis also haven’t played in a FIFA World Cup, but there have been four footballers from the country who have gone on to play for Premier League clubs.
The national team’s matches against European clubs expose them to a different style of football, which in turn help them become better players. We can expect India to tread a similar path in the next few years, but getting carried away at this juncture will do the national team no good.
The enthusiasm shown regarding the rankings has been pretty lively over the past two months, showing that a better performing national team has the potential to catch the fancy of the population. Thankfully, in Constantine, Indian football is in good hands and on the rise, raising hopes that India can become of the leading Asian clubs if they continue their recent upward trajectory.
