Why Indians can’t play football

We’ve heard this like a million times before, “How hard can it be to form a decent team of 11 from a country of more than a billion?” If you’re looking at the screen and shaking your head in resonance, I’d like you to stop right there. Just having more people doesn’t entail a country to have a good team. You can create miracles with a small group. Look no further than La Masia.

Yes, so why can’t Indians play good football? I’d like to shake hands with Russell Peters here and say that Indians are not built for football. The physique just isn’t there. 80% of men are just taller than midgets and have samosas every evening. I’m not claiming that short men can’t play football as Maradona broke that belief (if it ever existed) long back and Messi just slams the point home. But the fact remains that it comes naturally to them; football doesn’t come naturally to Indians. Football is not a reflex; it is something that grows on us due to exposure.

Maybe Manchester United has the biggest fan base in India but we can’t produce players of international caliber because football is an afterthought that gets very big. We can be better than the average and even be good, but we can’t be anywhere close to brilliant at this point in time. Maybe after a couple of generations football might come as a reflex. It is natural with the people from East India but the East as many would agree has been considered alien to our country, which is a shame. Lack of resources has let them down otherwise we could’ve easily created a team of 11 slippery quick young men willing to give up a limb for their country.

Seriousness apart, football is too quick. 90 minutes is just not enough to spend your money for. We are a chilled out nation and we have time. Why not just slow it down where players aren’t allowed to run but they’ll have to jog at a leisurely pace at all times? Then we can have a 90 minute half and we can have a match at least longer than a movie so that families can arrange a full day picnic.

Also, there’s no way we’d get referee’s who’d be willing to run that much! Who’d run like half a marathon when you’re not even playing! Hence, Indians play with only one referee sitting at the sideline who makes decisions with the aid of binoculars. Not being very dexterous, his whims run the game and this tradition of refereeing has eliminated the rules like off-side and encourages abusive language. Being very expressive, we use more than our shoulders (lots of fingers) and let ourselves be heard but this is what lets us down when we go to bigger arenas. Anyway, before you accuse me of talking more bat-shit, I’ll go and polish my dribbling skills. See? We’ve got so many distractions as well; instead of dribbling I went along scribbling.