World Cup Qualifier

World cup Qualifier

            India lost to Guam 2-1 in a world cup qualifying match.  India losing a match is not news but Guam is a small island in the western pacific with a population of just 1.6 Lacs. Further they are 33 ranks below India in the world cup rankings, India being 147 and Guam 174.  It is as if we are losing to a kid. Indian teams are coached by foreign coaches for a long time, but our standard is declining day by day. Present coach is Stephen Constantine.   During the last 2 decades, we have produced only 2 players i.e.; Baichung Butia   and Sunil Chetri who can be considered to be at least of Asian standard. I quote from my article written few years ago, the contents of which are still relevant.

“We are having good football coaches like Habib, P.K.Banerji, Chattunni, Nayeemuddin, Sukhvinder Singh etc. However, inspite of having good coaches in the country, we engage foreign coaches who are themselves failures in their own country by paying fabulous fees, which is many times more than the fees paid to their Indian counterparts. Indian football reached its nadir during the stewardship of Rustom Akramov, a Russian coach. He committed the biggest blunder by asking Joe Paul Anchery to play in the defence. Anchery is a lethal striker and even now he has the temptation to overlap and assume the role of a forward. However, for us Indians, foreigner’s words are like priest’s sermons and we meekly accepted the blunder.’

            Football was the most popular sport in the country till few years ago and several national level tournaments were being held at various parts of the country. Even in a tiny state like Kerala 7 national level tournaments were being held. In other words, 7 out of 10 district headquarters were hosting major tournaments. In those days, matches were being played in front of jam packed gallery and many had to return disappointed without getting ticket. DCM trophy football tournament was one of the prestigious tournaments in the country and many popular teams from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Iran etc used to participate in that tournament. Even the king of football Pele representing Cosmos Club New York participated n a friendly match with Mohun Bagan at salt lake stadium Calcutta.

            Golden era of Indian football was in the sixties. India was soccer champions at 1962. Jakarta Asian games.  India reached quarter finals of 1960 Rome Olympics and we were in a tough group comprising Hungary, France and Peru. We lost to Hungary by a narrow margin of 2-1 and drew 1-1 with powerful France. India qualified for the 1950 World Cup by default due to withdrawal of their scheduled opponents but did not play on trivial grounds.  We can remember those days with nostalgia only. Today we find it difficult to beat minnows like Nepal, Bhutan etc. in SAF games.

How long we have to wait to see India to become a super power in soccer?