Football, India

Had an interesting discussion today ... what will happen first?

An Indian team qualifying into Football WC Finals or India winning a bid to host Football WC owing to its Economic Might and huge fan base..

Of course, if we do host the cup our team will get in by default.

So, quite a few things came up which most people don't know about Indian Football ...

A. India qualified fr 1950 WC; withdrew coz FIFA rejected their request to play barefoot.

B. India won the 1951 & 1962 Asian Games gold.

C. India finished fourth in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

D. India's current rank is 133.

E. WC Qualifiers included 208 countries, some not even members of United Nations.

F. Even China was there in 2002 WC (Ans now they are sending full strength Cricket team to Asian games)

Here is my take on why India sucks at football...

A. Infrastructure; no playgrounds in schools etc etc.

B. Come on, we are not really built sturdy by default Like Europeans. We have to work fr it.

C. Cultural issues; First, sports has always been the second fiddle to academics across the country. Second, I think Indians just cannot perform in a random team; no team spirit.

Sometimes like minded individuals get together and produce results. Sometimes good systems in place ensure delivery. Sometimes the group feels a bonding due to weird reasons; caste, language, region and so on.

I have yet to see a total group of strangers in India willing to work together towards a goal; the grandeur of success, the sense of achieving something together doesn't generate the same motivation.

Thats why we have individual Sporting icons;

Ashok Amritraj, Vishwanathan Anand, Paes and Bhupati, Geet Sethi, Narayan Karthikeyan, Vijender singh, Abhinav Bindra, Sushil Kumar, Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Jyoti Randhawa, Jeev Milkha Singh.

Even our Cricketing success has been fueled by individuals ... we never play as a team, barring few exceptions. I mean, look at New Zealand and Aussies, they play cricket as a team.

I got a thrashing from many as I pointed the 3rd reason, and fought like hell defending my stand. I played football in college. I know what that sport is like, and I would end this blog by praying that I am proven wrong. Points A and B are small, it's point C that is holding us back.