The Indian Dream

The article in Goal blaming the fans like me for the state of Indian Football hurt me to reply. The answer lies in your statistics- Area per person is 0.01 sq km,0.0042 sq km and 0.0025 sq km for Slovenia T&T and India respectively. Yes -The resources are limited by the huge population.

Agony: We used to regularly play football and we were thrown out saying it is ground meant for only cricket! It was the most ridiculous reason how can a state owned ground only meant for cricket! So it happened in Hyderabad and it is happening everywhere- cricket does get superstar treatment. The great Prime Minister of India congratulated the Indian cricket team for Asia Cup triumph involving just 4 nations! Never heard him say anything on Nehru Cup win or SAFF cup win or ASIAN CUP 2011 qualification?! Forget football did you hear him say anything on Azlan Shah Cup win by Indian Hockey team?!Or Saina Nehwal for her win?

Don't you find any prejudice or bias? Or is everything fine!

FACT:Media loves Cricket- they keep feeding it! What about Vijayans, Papachans, Bhaichungs, Chetris, Sainas, Marykoms, Pargats do any one know? We want fast money. And all are behind that. Every one wants to have a piece of the cake but none interested in making that. With the win in 1983 Indians are following cricket and money is following into game and rest are neglected by the media and the positive cycle with media hype goes on. The rise of cricket since then have been fast. In football and in other sports the rise can't be that fast as the game is more universal and lot of others are consistently improving. But still there have been results - very good ones compared to recent failures in cricket-did the media project with that same intensity- U23 squad win in SAFF Cup, Hockey win in Azlan Shah Cup - where  is the media - busy with covering cricketers having cold and flu loosing to zombies and blues. The biggest story in I-League of rise of Pune FC never covered in Media? There are many such instances of this media bias and prejudice. It is not fans - they do their best to support and cheer the game. And for your kind information there are teams in the World Cup like New Zealand which don't have proper League structure.

Okay one more thing- Asian Qualifiers are tough-it is ridiculous 4 stage. The poor teams have only one chance (game) to qualify and quota is less than 10%. Look at European-American-Quota is 30-40% and they play around 10-20 games every time-they improve over the period with that exposure.

Don't blame us.Stop pointing fingers.The Indian Chalta hai attitude will not take us anywhere! Look at any field be it Education, Science and Technology, Medicine and healthcare where we stand - we stand nowhere! It has been jsut mediocre - No Nobel prizes, no patents, no innovation - we are still behind in all fields except cricket caste and corruption.


Future :"It is wrong to corrupt your view by injecting optimism or hope into what you are seeing.That's false.If you look truly hard you can see the seeds of future"-V.S.Naipaul . With that I conclude that situation is not that bad. The 2009 year has been eventful and the Indian football and the game will improve but give it time.Don't expect over-night results. Nobody can kill the football fan inside every human. That is the basic instinct and the time will come with good results. Slow and steady wins the race.Well I don't expect still India to play the World Cup in my lifetime until and unless basic Indian mentality changes  or the qualification process changes but still will be there in top 10 in Asia in coming 10 years. The main reason being Football is a team game-and in India we lack team spirit. We have come up with good football players and this trend will only improve - but will they combine well to provide the results is the big question?

Team-spirit: Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk says "It is just as important to have a strong team, a team that knows what it is about and does not necessarily have to be each other's friends,'' "They have to respect each other's qualities. They need to be able to tell each other the truth.Those are usually the teams that are able to bounce back when it really matters, and I think that we are able to do that.'' Holland's defender Johnny Heitinga after the  World Cup 2010 round of 16 win against Slovakia said "It surprised me that England went out so soon,” he said. “When you see all the players in their squad you’ve got maybe the best team in the world. But, if you want to win a title, the most important thing is you have to be a team, work for the team and fight for each other.It doesn’t matter if someone makes a mistake, you have to cover his back and fight for each other. You have to put your ego away and play as a team.” Biggest question is does Indians have that option of team-building as these ?

       Carlos Tevez says after Germany defeat "We didn't play as a team, and that was our biggest problem, We knew Germany would play on the counter-attack, like they did against England, and our mistake was not being able to stop that. It was the fact that we didn't play as a team that cost us. We have some of the top players in the world. Germany and Holland don't have top players, but they won their games and made it as a team."



Past:The fact is that others are consistently improving and it will as football is the Universal and most popular game. We had our time - our golden generation- the glory days - in 1950s and we didn't take it. So is the case with many - what is the status of Hungary now? What about the level of Uruguay? Where does the Dutch league stands? Every country will go through phases and changes and it is ridiculous to sit on past glorious day but work hard for the future. Brazil didn't sit on their glorious past of 1960s but they worked hard on a new regime to come back stronger and win the World Cup again in 1994 after long 24 years wait.

Conclusion:STOP THIS BLAME GAME! It is painful to blame the poor fans like me just because we love this game - for the state of this game.The fact is there noone to take this responsibility to move forward. If Coach Bob Houghton takes the responsibility he is not provided the free hand of affairs - there are back seat drivers.Why? That is Indian culture! This chalta hai attitude will not take us anywhere! The slow natural pace of change is only foreseen possibility for this pathetic system & state of country!