IGNORANT FOOTBALL FANS IN INDIA NEED TO RISE

I still remember the morning of 28^th April 2011 when all my friends who were Real Madrid and Barcelona fans were in a tussle on Twitter, Facebook and all social platforms available, all this cause of the sending off of the Madrid central defender Pepe when he had actually not touched Dani Alves. And the social football fight was also there on 7^th May 2009 when Barcelona knocked out Chelsea with Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo disallowing many of the penalty chances that Chelsea should have actually got with Ballack and Drogba leading the race to shout at the ref. But on 24^th of July 2011 everything was all cool why should there be any issue no EPL no La Liga no SerieA so just for my so called football loving friends to know on 23^rd July 2011 UAE defeated India 3-0 in the first leg of the World Cup qualifiers.

Oh please don’t stress your head thinking why is this Jughead making such a hue and cry about a loss as it keeps happening in sports. I am making this hue and cry because India ended the match with only 9 men in blues on the field, with Red card being awarded to Debabrata Roy and Subrata Pal when there wasn’t much of a physical contact in any of the two situations which led to the penalties and also the red cards. Now where are the Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea fans gone come on how can you be a club faithful if you are not even close to being a country faithful?  Every player in the world says and feels there is no better feeling than playing for your national team. Please a humble request don’t start with the age old topic that Indian football is not that great come on how can it be great when their own countries football supporters have no idea about what they are going through.

The referee in that match was Banjar Al Dosari who is from Qatar, just asking the FIFA committee what were they actually thinking when they knew India were suppose to play Qatar before the qualifiers why designate Dosari to take control of the match. Me being very neutral follower of football won’t comment anything more on this but would surely want to bring your attention on to the two Red card situations.

Debabrata Roy Red Card

One of the UAE midfielder sent in a cross which was met by a deflection and was falling in the path of the UAE striker with Roy only chasing him and Subrata Pal in total control to snatch the ball from the air but then the Striker came tumbling down holding his ankle with there being no physical contact from Roy only a defensive pressure. What next? Debabrata was given his marching orders.

Subrata Pal Red Card

Considered to be one the highly experienced and talented shot stoppers in Asian sub continent especially due to his Spiderman style reflexive saves. Almost same situation as the first one the ball crossed in the box and the ball being in the reach of the Indian keeper he jumped caught the ball took a step and raised his knees to his abdomen as all keeper do which is very normal. And with the striker charging towards him Subrata just brushed the UAE striker on the side ribs and the striker who had a good course in play acting and loved the lush green turf started to roll on the lush green turf which I would say surely deserved a yellow card. But Subrata’s past reputation (Junior Incident) came to haunt him and was shown the red card.

Has anyone got any reason that would speak in favor of the mockery made by the referee of the beautiful game? But surely everyone would want to congratulate our coach Armando Colaco who has done a great job with his side, even after being nine men down for most of the match we played much much better than 11 men under Houghton. We were passing well, we were trying to attack and we played as a unit, what more can you expect 9 men to do against 12 men (ref included). We displayed courage, talent and passion to win.

Now my question comes back to all the readers where were all the football followers in India when this was happening why were there no fights on the social network forums? Where had your football following spirit disappeared? If this sought of situation would have happened in cricket I’ll tell you what all would have happened:

1. A group would have been made on Facebook say "BAN DOSARI" with 1 million followers.
2. May be a Candle march may be at India gate.
3. Or if it was a very critical situation say with respect to a match with Pakistan there would have been a massive discussion in parliament with bats and wickets been thrown around.

But in this case what happened NOTHING. For everyone who says India is not a footballing nation but a cricketing nation wouldn’t it be better if we would be known as Sports Nation of the world. If I take the first red card scenario and compare it with Puyol doing the same my Catalan supporter friends would have had the FB status “Puyol was at his amazing best but the ref was biased” and as for Pal’s situation if Casillas would have got red carded my Castilian supporter friends would have had the status “Dosari has no idea what goalkeeping is all about”. Come on guys I know Indian football still needs to develop a lot but come on show some respect, trust and support in your national team Climax holds same importance to Indian football as Dhoni does to Indian cricket.

"THESE ARE MY VIEWS ALONE"

For more of sports related article go to www.isport.in right now.

Just a small portion of Indian Football

I have spent 4yrs of my life in Sikkim at a place known as Majhitar approx 45min away from the beautiful capital city Gangtok. One of the reason for me choosing Sikkim Manipal as the institute which would give me my engineering degree was that I knew I would be close to my passion of sports which I surely was. 

I say people of Sikkim are born with three passions rest all the other they develop with time first being Music second being good Food and third being Football. You walk on the streets of Sikkim and every second shop is going to be a Momo point and all shops have their own peculiar taste. You make a friend in Sikkim and he surely must be either a master of some musical instrument or would surely have a good taste in music. Every small little gully every small little roof every small little house every small little school you would see a big lot of kids with a spark in their eyes that they just might be the next Baichung to represent their country in the beautiful game football.

But out of the thousand people including people of my age and also small little kid who can dribble the ball like say may be Messi or shoot a ball like Ronaldo does only 20 are able to manage the courage to risk their life for the love of football. And I say they are not wrong why should they risk their life in something you are not sure even if you give your 200% to it all you might end up is say may be a Physical education teacher at some school where you wouldn't be even sure if you be able to cater for your family needs. At the end of the day everyone doesn't have a luck as some of our premier footballers of our country have not everyone is born with the luck of Sunil Chhetri or Jeje who gave their life to this beautiful game and thrived on the concept of 80% perspiration and 20% inspiration to be who they are today.

But for everyone to know footballers like Messi have had a difficult early life, diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency at the age of 11 his family didn’t have that much money for his treatment but his family and Barcelona saw what he was capable of and was hence brought to La Masia where he was treated on a daily basis and was also trained and rest all is history now for what he has become. In the same way Didier Drogba who is right now the best centre forward the world would ever seen was born in a poor family in Ivory Coast which is far far behind economically as compared to India which is till date affected by wars and communalism. All the football superstar of the modern football world have one thing in common that they had always someone to believe in them.

Why wouldn’t a boy from Sikkim get into a government job where he would not only be getting good money but would very easily be able to give his family a comfortable life rather than getting in football where his future is not even 5% clear. While my stay in Sikkim I have seen only one good stadium where the infrastructure seems close to being nice that being the one in Gangtok. Surely a footballer is born on the streets but he is developed to come on the world stage if he has the infrastructure to support him. Scouts are not the first stage of finding a star but its their parents and his teacher who go out of their way to bring their child or student to the eyes of a scout or a person who is established enough to move things here and there and show it to their child what he can really do it and what he can grow up to be. I swear I have seen people from around the world but people from India are more down to earth than anyone because they have a strong culture and traditions as the base for their upbringing, which is one of the most important factor cause of which our thinking is not at all out of the box.

But I don’t know if you all would agree to me or not but a budding footballer from India has to have that out of the box thinking to prove everyone around him wrong and show the world what Indians are capable of. We Indians are known in the world of  Engineering, Doctors, Politicians, Scientists, Sports and almost all the professional field so I can’t stop myself but believe we are able enough to bring up 15 footballers to the world stage. For that we need the support of our family, our teachers, our coaches and our government but most importantly the richy rich entrepreneurs who are ranked along with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson to believe that India does have a bright future even in football. So that many of my friends who were superstars in my college because of the talent they displayed on the field who are now working in IT industries or into government job and letting their talent and passion for the game go in vain, they see to that their children get to do what they want in life.

I have huge respect for Dr. Mallya and Venky’s group for what they doing on the football circuit but its time we from within the country bring up our scouting level, infrastructure level and thinking level that would bring Indian football to world stage. Is it necessary that football should have been commonwealth games then only we can have world class infrastructure for the most loved game in the world. For those who think is it worth investing in yes it is cause most of richest human being in the world are in some way or other are involved in sports I think this should be the biggest evidence for all.

I would also contradict those who think the support for football is not that much in India i am sure it is not that much as Cricket is but go look at the sales of football merchandise in our country is increasing exponentially every year. If that doesn’t ring a bell go check out the number of hits www.thehardtackle.com , www.goal.com/en-in and www.isport.in  get every day and most recently the kind of support India’s first football magazine 90minutes (www.90minutes.in ) has received that shows the increasing interest in football in India. Its high time we bring Indian football on worlds map.

And I am very happy to hear that Blackburn Rovers owned by Venky’s group is thinking of opening up an academy in India and Bayer Munich is taking 4 Indian kids to be trained in Allianz arena in Germany. Hope many more steps of this form are taken in coming days.  

A DREAM NOT FOR ONE BUT FOR ALL

Let’s start with two numbers 1,192,277,000 and 46,030,109. I know first of all you must be thinking what are these huge numbers doing in a sports article and what in the world are these numbers. These numbers are the estimated population of two different countries first being of India and other being of Spain. And now coming on to another set of numbers 145 and 1 I am so sure by now the soccer fans must have realise what these numbers are 145 is the FIFA ranking for our country India and yes Spain is numero uno. Don’t you feel these two numbers contradict each other a country which has two more digits in its population than the other county is 144 rank behind the country smaller in population.

Now coming on to my subject I being a soccer fan have always dreamt of one thing to see my country play in FIFA World cup. I suppose its not only my dream but a dream that all the soccer fans one or more than once must have dreamt in their life. Specially living in a country which has always been more than that they expect themselves to be. I know its not totally about population but don’t you think we cant find 22 players in our country. Who will prove to be a super power may be not now but 10 years down the line. I can say that it is possible as we Indians feel pride to excel in all domain of life let it be business, politics, sports.

Hats off to Mr. Lalit Modi to give its brain child IPL a life which has actually made BCCI one of the richest board all over the world. No doubt that hasn’t been an easy task but the investors need to believe there is huge profit return in the sports domain which has actually made it possible for us to host cricket world cup this year. I would like to quote “On 12 September, 2006 BCCI announced that it will spend $347 Million (Rs. 16 Billion) over the subsequent one year to upgrade the cricket stadiums around the country.” May be if 70 % of  this statement is true it has actually brought world cup tournament to our sub continent and I am so sure after the tournament BCCI would be richer than ever. Its high time we realise some of the richest businessmen in the world have invested hugely in sports. I would like to quote few of the names Glazer family- Manchester United, Roman Abramovich- Chelsea, Silvio Berlusconi- AC Milan and more recently Laxmi Mittal with Queens Park Ranger, Venky Group- Blackburn Rovers and Ahsan Ali Syed- Racing Santander. Yes last three being all business men from Indian origin.

If we want we can actually make it possible for Indians to be a super power on the soccer front we just need to concentrate on few fronts starting from building a world class infrastructure and by that I just don’t mean only Nike being our official jersey sponsor but we want world class stadiums, gymnasium and trainers to make our players competitive enough so that next time if another Sunil Chhetri doesn’t get physically pushed by some other player, we need to look for a coach whom we can call our ‘THE SPECIAL ONE’ who belives we can and not just sail along, set up a training camp in all the corners of our country cause our strength actually does lie in the hearts of our villages and after which we can bring up 11 men who can hold their heart on their sleeves and play like champions never mind their might be some heart breaks initially there has always been a saying we are stronger than ever when we rise from the dust. But before that All India football federation sweetly known as AIFF to get up from their sleep and make the investors believe yes we can do that so that we can actually make Subrata Pal, Rakesh Masih, Syed Rahim Nabi, Sunil Chhetri a house hold name other than Sachin or Dravid or Dhoni and by doing so the investors will be richer than ever.

                                                                       

At the end I would like to end with a quote by American author Henry David Thoreau

Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.