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Football is the sport with largest fan-base around the globe, and over the years we’ve witnessed so many matches, legendary footballers, and magical footballing exhibitions showcased by them. We’ve been travelling alongside them in their victories, defeats, achievements, records and emotions.
While this beautiful game conquered the entire world, the largest democratic country, India, is no exception. It is no surprise that a good percentage of Indians are football fans, even though it is known as a cricketing nation.
Although India has achieved a lot in cricket, when it comes to football it is quite the opposite, having not produced a world class football team until the present. While many other least-densely populated countries are ranked above India in the FIFA rankings, India are struggling to show their presence in International football.
India is home to supporters of some of the footballing powerhouses like Argentina, Brazil, England, Spain and Germany. Moreover the football lovers are desperate indeed to see a good team represent their nation at international levels.
Adding to their woes, India have never qualified for a FIFA World Cup tournament, which is the greatest stage in football, and it is the right of every fan out there to dream about their country being crowned as the ultimate winners by clinching football’s most coveted trophy. Hence, let us have a close look at few of the obvious reasons for the country being not able to shine at the biggest stages of football.
Scouting
The first and foremost reason to be tackled is the lack of young talents in the squad, and India’s failure on the international stages exposes this fact crystal clear. That said, it doesn’t mean that India is short of domestic talents. However, the framework to find and filter the talents haven’t designed yet.
It is the need of the hour to find and nurture young footballers and hand over the nation’s football future to those with whom it is safe, secure and will prosper further. The AIFF, partnering with central and state ministries, federations, clubs, academies and educational institutions could take massive steps towards the above said future.
AIFF should improve the quality of ongoing scouting and grass-root programs in such a way that it reaches out to the children hailing from both, the cities and the villages as well.
ISL Grassroots
Indian education system should also be blamed, perhaps as it doesn’t encourage the students to focus on anything apart from academics. Balancing between the academics and sports is mandatory because none can deny the fact that not every student is destined to be an engineer, doctor, scientist or advocate. Maybe the system is not helping to bring out the skills and abilities of the student and it is the society’s responsibility to admit it and initiate the reformations.
Villages and small towns are football treasures with plenty of local talents concealed inside. Spotting and providing them with good opportunities can help them to show themselves to outside world.
While we’ve enjoyed watching great players like Pele and Messi running the shows with their magical on-field abilities, one thing we often forget is that they were also born in such villages.
They were spotted by their respective childhood clubs and the rest is history. If India had a better scouting system with great officials and coaching staff, we might already be watching them locking horns with European teams and getting ready to travel to Russia.
Therefore finding, cutting and polishing the hidden gems of this soil should result in a great team in future than selecting uninterested and ineligible players. Who knows, one day India will be crowned as the World champions and an Indian boy or girl might be presented with a Ballon d’Or!
Infrastructure and facilities
Having great infrastructure, training facilities and technology plays a pivotal role. From player-fitness monitoring to broadcasting, coaching, analyzing tactical approach of opponents and spotting mistakes in games, all these parts play a vital role in football.
India do have so many stadiums, but they are mostly multi-purpose arenas, not dedicated solely to football. We need world class stadiums meant to host only football matches which can compete with European arenas
Every citizen knows the value of the government’s contribution towards the development of sports in the country, and it is the government’s responsibility to boost the development by improving basic infrastructure, providing training and fitness centers and financing the sports bodies as well.
The neighbors China came up with the idea of building stadiums and playing areas open to public and India can always look up to them and follow their path in this regard, which helps the cause.
Football being failing to make as much impact as cricket managed to do in this country symbolizes that there is still a plenty of room for growth. This gives us a tiny visualization about how much effort the AIFF has to put in to popularize the game and its significance in the sub-continent.
Hosting big tournaments, international and European club friendlies on home turf is necessary to reach out to more number of fans as well. Watching Messi and Ronaldo playing in India is bliss indeed!!!
International exposure
It is a well-known factor that Indian national team is going through good times as it is placed in a better position as per latest FIFA rankings and enjoying its best ever undefeated international run, which currently stands at 13 matches.
It seems that AIFF is also serious about the youth teams as it hosted the county’s first ever FIFA tournament, the FIFA U17 World Cup.
The fans are pumped-up post the tournament, even though the Indian team didn’t live up to the expectations. This tournament brought the nation’s affair with the game to limelight as India registered a record high attendance from the stands.
The national team’s underwhelming performance in the FIFA U17 World Cup tournament, which crowned England as champions, taught us the importance of participating in competitive tournaments contending with bigger teams.
Hence, giving the Blue Tigers more opportunities to play in both foreign and home soils may help them to understand their strength and vulnerabilities. This would also pave the way for their technical and tactical development; reduce pressure on their shoulders and be able to present the fans with an amazing show of clean passing, dribbling and set-piece skills by bringing the best out of the young lads.
World class clubs and leagues
Premier League and La-Liga have been successful in attracting huge number of fans around the world and just like every other country, India too has its official leagues and cups, like I-League and Federation Cup.
But these tournaments have often failed to attract big crowds towards the stadium. The image that word football brings to our mind would be of the logos of our favorite clubs like FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF, Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea FC. These clubs all have a very huge fan base countrywide, who dream about watching Indians play for them and roaring from the stands in support to them. Therefore improving the quality of clubs and leagues is essential.
The launch of ISL has really helped in gaining some attention and also now the fans are heading towards stadiums in large numbers. Likewise, the introduction of a longer league lasting four or more months would give the players more playing time which, would reveal their consistency levels as well.
Clubs should establish academies, tie-up with local institutions and organize grass-root programs for harvesting better talents by identifying their potential and offer those budding stars better training, aiming physical, technical and tactical growth.
AIFF should also make sure that the younger players get more playing time as the league could really be a platform for their future. Introduction of youth leagues in both I-League and ISL such as U15, U19 and U21 would very well serve the purpose.
AIFF must take quick decisions in prioritizing the appropriate league choosing between either I-league or ISL, clearing the confusions and ease the friction between these top two tournaments.
The officials have to do a of work in order to put everything in place and build a great quality team standing at par with the likes of European and South American Seleccións. If we are capable of sorting out the above mentioned problems, we can very well give those so called European and South American powerhouses a run for their money.
All we should do is have faith, dream big, get out there and show our love and support for the team. There is no doubt that India could achieve great heights in coming days with government and fans strongly by AIFF’s side. Hope that one day we too can lift the FIFA World Cup trophy as the World Champions.
