On the 11th I went to the National Stadium where a double header between India - DPR Korea and Uzbekistan - Turkmenistan was about to take place. The Thai people are incredible football fans. Not only do they go crazy every four years for the World Cup (Like every other nation, sans the USA), but they go crazy every week over Premiership football. Every person in Thailand owns either a Man United or Liverpool kit and they have about a dozen different football magazines in this country. Knowing full well about their passion for football, I was left scratching my head on two counts on this day. First, why are the two games mentioned above not being played at the same time? If Uzbekistan and Korea both win then it will come down to goal difference and Turkmenistan will have a clear advantage in playing the later game. There are about a dozen stadiums in Bangkok, so there was absolutely no excuse for this. The second point, where were all the passionate Thai football fans? The National stadium holds close to 50,000 and there were only about 500 people at the game. 400 of them were police officers!
Anyway, I bought my ticket and headed into the stadium. I was hoping to catch the Indian players get off the bus, but they had already arrived. The National stadium was beautiful, but unfortunately as I mentioned, there was no one there. That brings me to this point. Where are all the Indian fans? Ok so the Thais did not want to see a match between two less than stellar Asia clubs, but how about the thousands of Indians living in Bangkok or even the hundreds of athletes in the Indian contingent. I honestly counted four Indians at the game and about ten total including the media. Pathetic!
I had a half an hour before the game and I tried to see if any AIFF officials were at the game. I did not see any, so I approached an Indian journalist. I met with a man named Pulakesh Mukhopadhyay, the deputy sports editor of "The Statesman." He was incredibly interested in what I had to say about the web-site, fan club, Indians playing overseas, etc. He actually told me that he thought he was the biggest and only fan of Indian football, but I proved him wrong. I was flattered, but I was quick to mention that there are at least 25 or so like me out there. He then begged me to give me all the documents and pictures I had brought with me. I was reluctant, but when he stated that no AIFF official had made the trip to Bangkok, I handed over the documents to him with an understanding that he would forward it to AIFF officials back in Calcutta. I then asked him questions about the Indian side. He was thankfully not too negative. He said that the Indian side is slowly improving and the major problem is that other sides in Asia are getting better at a much faster rate.
After a brief chat with the journalist I went to my seat. The Indian team came out for warm-ups. They had an orange training shirt on and they warmed-up for a good ten minutes. To be honest they looked very much at ease during the warm-ups. They were doing the correct types of drills and they seem relaxed for a side that knew that DPR Korea was going to try to run up the score on them to get a better goal differential than Turkmenistan. After the warm-ups they headed back into the locker and as they were walking there, I shouted to Baichung and asked him if I could have his shirt. He said he would give it to me after the game. I was pumped!
About five minutes later the Korean and Indian teams came out. The Indian side was wearing their normal blue uniforms. They looked really nice. It was made by Umbro (I don't think they sponsor the team though) and it looked similar to Chelsea's home kit. The game started and Korea was on the offensive for the first 15 minutes. They managed to score a goal in that period too. As the game went on India did get its chances. I would say the game was 65% - 35% Korea. The final score ended up being 2 - 0 DPR Korea. Though Korea did dominate the game, India should have done better. They had some great build up and some terrible finishing. Jo Paul Ancheri missed two open net shots that nine times out of ten he would have made. Korea also missed some easy goals, a couple of them because of the great play of the Indian goalkeeper (I can't remember his name, but he was not the black guy, he was Indian looking). If all the easy tries were converted, I would say that the final score line would probably have been 5 - 2 Korea.
I have seen India play four times before, all in the SAFF championship in Kathmandu, and I must say they are a much improved side. I read that the side was a good mix of seniors and youth, but I saw many more seniors than I did youth. The only youngster that stood out was #16 Anit (I believe his last name is Ghosh, but the jersey only had his first name). He had some great moves and is one to watch. Before I forget, all the Indians had nice boots. They were all top of the line products. Amit was actually wearing the Adidas Predator. Most of the players were wearing Reeboks, the same kind Batistuta wears (I work for Nike so I pay close attention to these things). I think Baichung was wearing the Reebok Sidewinders. So at least it is good to know that the players on the pitch have the latest products and not out of date and washed up boots.
I would say the player that stood out the most was Jo Paul Ancheri. He made a lot of quality runs. His shots did not so service to some of the fabulous runs he made. Of course Vijayan and Bhaichung looked very good too. Vijayan is a master of changing fields. Every time he got the ball he would send the ball wide and allow a teammate to cross the ball in. For some reason the Koreans never picked up on it and at times neither did the Indians, though there were flashes of brilliance from Baichung, I was disappointed with his performance. Baichung seemed very pedestrian like during the majority of the game. He does not get enough touches on the ball and it his mostly his fault. He did not make good runs to get himself open. To be honest he seemed a bit lazy.
While there were some positives, there were also lots of negatives in the Indian game. The defence was not in sink. They never knew the positioning of their teammates and had a hard time clearing balls. The first touch of the Indian players was just awful. If a player was closely marked you could basically forget it, the ball was going to be turned over. Another problem was the Indian players just do not know how to create space for themselves. They do not make good runs into space, nor do they make good passes into space. Bhaichung was probably the worst of the lot. I must say I was also very disappointed in the head coach. He did not get off the bench once. He did not inject an ounce of fire into the team. It was clearly evident that he had done a very poor job preparing the team because no one seemed to know where any of his teammates was going to be.
When the game ended, I went outside near the player's entrance to meet up with Baichung. After ten minutes or so several Indian players came out and I was a bit shocked. The players looked more like beggars than they did football stars. I am not the only one with this opinion either. The world champion snooker player who is an Indian also complained in the Bangkok Post about how the Indian athletes looked more like beggars than athletes. Supposedly the Indian track suits had yet to arrive in Bangkok. They eventually did arrive in time for the closing ceremonies. They were quite lovely, but the Indian footballers were already on a plane to India by the time they had arrived. But I was disgusted with the way the AIFF treats its players. These footballers are ambassadors for India and they were wearing this ugly polyester shirt with India written on the back, most of them were wearing old torn up shoes without any socks, some even with sandals. They honestly looked so sloppy and unprofessional. I myself believe that all top footballing nations have one thing in common, their football players are heroes and because of that young kids practice their tails off so that one day they can also be like their heroes and that is what is missing from South Asian football. Our footballers are not revered. There is no desire to be a footballer because it his hard to see the fruits of ones labour. Well, certainly I was in no hurry to be a footballer after seeing the national team. I was a bit depressed to be honest.
My depression quickly faded as Baichung came out. He gave me his practice jersey as he had promised (I was hoping he would give me his game jersey, but you can't be too choosy). I then took a picture with him and got him to sign a picture of him I had found in the "Asian Football Magazine." He seemed pleasantly surprised to find his picture in an international magazine, though he should not be because he has been featured on numerous television shows including, The Asian Football Show, Asia Sport, Futbol Mundial and even a BBC documentary on sports in India I just saw the other day. I then asked Baichung if he would ever come to Boston again. As many of you might know Baichung is a Reebok athlete and their headquarters are in Boston. He had come to Boston last spring for some training from the Reebok people and also to try out (though he denied it in Indian newspapers) with the New England Revolution football club. He said that he wasn't coming any time soon. I told him if he ever does I would love to host him. He smiled. I then wished him best of luck in the National League and then I went home with a giant grin on my face.