(Football news) The Indian football team drew 1-1 against Nepal in what was a very unenterprising performance from the Blue Tigers. Igor Stimac’s record over the past two years has not been great as he has managed two wins, seven defeats and seven draws. With Indian football the results don't pay much importance; it's mostly about improvement in quality of football and development of youngsters in India. The most common myth or question that comes with Indian football is ‘why a nation of 1.4 billion people fail to produce 11 good footballers?’
It’s not like the talent doesn’t exist but India is failing to nurture them properly by giving these youngsters proper exposure to International football. If you take the Indian Super League (ISL) for example, the amount of young budding players coming from different regions of the country is quite extraordinary but the very fact of limited game time hampers their growth and development. The league has taken necessary steps to change this by introducing the 3+1 rule where only four foreign players will be allowed to play in the starting eleven, after this rule hopefully more young footballers get the chance to play and get coached by good pedigree foreign coaches.
The other problem with the ISL is that it is a closed league where the same number of teams play without the fear of getting relegated. Even though ISL is the best thing that has happened to Indian football, the sense of competitive football is lacking. A proper road map needs to be laid where the I League should become the second tier league and the top two teams from the I League should be promoted to the ISL and bottom two teams from the ISL will get relegated. This will not only bring the sense of competitiveness back but also follow the European league standards.
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Our Indian football federation should take inspiration from the Hockey team that won a historic bronze medal in this year's Olympics. The Indian Hockey team followed a 10 year plan where the Hockey Federation nurtured and carefully monitored the progression of the junior hockey players who went to represent the country later on. The same needs to be done by the AIFF and follow a plan where they can nurture the U-17 players who represented India in the U17 World Cup by probably sending them to Europe or at least making sure they get regular playing time.
Players like Sunil Chhetri and Sandesh Jhingan should be taken as inspiration for youngsters in India as they define the epitome of success by playing in Europe without much help from the AIFF. Sunil Chhetri at the age of 37 is still going strong and breaking records but the main problem will arrive when he retires as India have no ready-made replacement for him. The very fact that majority of India’s goals in the recent years have been scored by Sunil Chhetri speaks volumes of where Indian football is headed. The only way we can find a replacement is by tracking the process of all the youngsters right from the grassroot levels.
The plan proposed by Kushal Das (Secretary of AIFF) was for India to qualify for the World Cup in 2030 but if the necessary steps aren’t being taken then it looks like a distant dream. In India, the number of football fanatics are crazy as there are a lot of people supporting foreign clubs and countries but every football fan in India hopes to see the tricolour on the biggest stage of all.
