THE BLOG BY CPD FOOTBALL | The World of Indian football and beyond by Chris Punnakkattu Daniel

Tanuj Lakhina: Can Indian football bring back the glory days?

Tanuj Lakhina

The Indian football team (at the time of writing) languishes at a lowly 166th in the FIFA rankings. In 2011, the team lifted the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Trophy beating Afghanistan 4-0 in the final and featured in the AFC Asian Cup after 27 years.

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The views expressed in any of the published FAN’s COLUMN do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publication www.chrispd.de and/or its editor Chris Punnakkattu Daniel. The FAN’s COLUMNS reflect the opinion of the particular guest columnist and they are solely the responsibility of their author.

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The managerial reign remained a matter of controversy and debate in the last two years. After Bob Houghton’s sacking, AIFF chose Armando Colaco as interim coach in 2011 to head the Indian National team but after a six game run, the permanent role was handed to Savio Medeira. He also stayed for a short term as a poor string of results, especially at the AFC Challenge Cup in Nepal, resulted in Dutchman Wim Koevermans being instilled as the manager.

His appointment brought about change in mentality and setup. There was a strategic change based on the opponent thereby helping India lift the Nehru Cup in the capital beating the likes of Syria and Cameroon in the process. Unfortunately, Cameroon fielded a second string side therefore India couldn’t make most of this remarkable win. India could have reaped in some important points later when they travelled to Singapore but it was met with a disappointing and lackluster 2-0 loss. The tie against Yemen was cancelled due to travelling issues from the Yemen side.

It would be hard to fathom for many that the team qualified for the 1950 World Cup only to withdraw their entry under mysterious circumstances. It is believed the team wanted to play barefoot while FIFA regulations didn’t allow that although this was just a cover up by All India Football Federation (AIFF) claiming it was an expensive affair, lack of match practice for the team, team selection issues and absurdly, valuing Olympics over a FIFA World Cup.

The 1950’s and the early 1960’s were glorious years for the Indian national team. The Blue Tigers (as they are unofficially known) won the gold medal in Asian Games in 1951 in their home territory, won all the editions of the Quadrangular Cup (1952-1955), finished second in their group in the 1954 Asian Games in Manila, fourth in the Olympic Games in 1956 beating hosts Australia in the process, finished fourth in the 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo, bagging a gold in the 1962 Asian Games in Indonesia and finished second two years later in Israel for the Asian Cup. After this the team had a slump with only a 3rd place finish at 1970 Asian Games in Thailand to contend with.

Ever since, India hasn’t had glories of such stature despite winning two Nehru Cups, AFC Challenge Cup and being part of Asia Cup twice in 1984 and 2011. While these wins have been crucial to the confidence of the team, they don’t match the laurels of yesteryears.

Presently football in India is trying to maintain a foothold with I-League getting a lucrative TV sponsorship deal but there is little to no following of the domestic competitions. While the national team draws larger crowds in comparison, many are still unaware of the names of the players and the coach as well. Despite having more than 50 caps for the national team, players such as Climax Lawrence, Gouramangi Singh, Anthony Pereira aren’t household names. This partially has to do with lack of media coverage and partially due to the ignorance by people in general.

During the India v Bayern Munich game there were many fans wearing jerseys of various football clubs such as Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton and national team jerseys in Brazil, Germany, England but very few wearing light blue of India. While this comparison isn’t fair given the marketing by the teams mentioned above, it does shed some light on how India is behind in merchandising of its own T-shirts, how fans would rather spend money on buying jerseys of other countries/clubs than the Indian national team/club jersey.

In terms of team performance, many fans I’ve interacted with wouldn’t go watch an India game because “we’re just not good enough”. It would be incorrect to generalise and hold this as an opinion of the masses but this approach is detrimental for any team, let alone a team down in the doldrums which could do with a noisier atmosphere inside the stadium and larger crowds. This ideology of not attending India games based on “how we play” can be ascertained from the fact that tickets of a friendly versus Namibia were sold for free and yet didn’t draw the crowds. In contrast, tickets for game against Bayern Munich were reasonably expensive and had a higher turnout. The fans in question fail to realise the condition of the sport in the country with little funding, very little marketing, not much when it comes to development of youth and not the best facilities for football.

The fans, the media and the AIFF need to realise that everything goes hand in hand. If the sport needs to progress in the country then all three hands need to come together. Many question whether the sport needs media or the media needs the sport, in Indian football’s case, both are needed along with the fans to have the team rise from 166th and make some progress towards the highs of the 50’s.

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PLEASE NOTE:
The views expressed in any of the published FAN’s COLUMN do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publication www.chrispd.de and/or its editor Chris Punnakkattu Daniel. The FAN’s COLUMNS reflect the opinion of the particular guest columnist and they are solely the responsibility of their author.

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