Super Soccer shows India's Super Failure

by Harmit Singh Kamboe

The football fans across India have not seen the kind of football first hand lately that São Paulo FC has shown across the country on a three week long trip. Their Indian opponents and the football fans across India have been enthralled by a third string team from the land where football, music and dance have all combined to give poetry to the game.
If the difference between a third string São Paulo FC and us was enough for us to be ashamed, think again:

1. We have stood still
Of all the observations of São Paulo FC coach Antonio Carlos Silva this one is the most true and has therefore hurt the most. Antonio Carlos Silva toured India as a player more than a decade ago and he said that he is surprised to find that the football standard in India is still the same. There probably cannot be a more telling observation that this on the state of Indian football. As an Indian football fan and as Indians, this is reason enough for hanging our heads in national shame.

2. Our players need to be fed right
Further the São Paulo coach Antonio Carlos Silva has pointed out that the Indian players are physically very weak. He found the technique of the players to be "not all that bad" but on the fitness front he has found the Indian opponents to be totally lacking.
To the Indian fans that watch any of the overseas league games on TV that is pretty obvious too. The Indian players appear dainty, timid and tentative. Blaming genetics is a cowardly and too easy excuse. Coach Silva is on record stating that even the Brazilians are not as strong as the Africans or the Europeans but they possess the minimum standards of fitness required for International football. It is no wonder that national coach Bob Houghton has also been harping on the same issue but in much politer terms.
It is not just what a player eats but when and how often he eats. Indians have a habit of eating late into the night, shortly before bed time and eating fewer but heavier meals. And nothing could be further from the necessary desired approach.
We appeal the AIFF and the clubs of the country to give due importance to things like a proper diet, gym routines, etc to get the physical fitness up to par with at least the Asian teams.

3. Our infrastructure is in neglect
The São Paulo coach has also noted in his numerous interviews that India has the infrastructure but she has not taken care of it. Our decaying stadiums, lack of attention to keeping them up to date with Asian standards (let alone global standards) are all symptomatic of the Indian "chalta hai" attitude. That attitude will not do any more.
India cannot continue to be a booming economy but a sporting pygmy. Sports is a way the manliness of a nation is judged in the public eye around the globe.

Summary
We thank Antonio Carlos Silva for his observations as sometime it takes an outsider to shine light on the areas that we do not look at or think about, either deliberately or unconsciously. The three key observations above make me wonder if India really cares about football because the Indian football administrators from the outside certainly do not appear to do so.

If this was any other country of a billion people, heads would have rolled, sweeping changes would have been evident to the naked eye and the Brazilians would have seen a looming threat to their dominance in the years ahead. But that was not to be…

Mercifully, there are a few initiatives at the youth level that football lovers have launched across the country that are featured in our "Youth Development" section of the site (http://www.indianfootball.com/features/youthdevelopment.html).
And they are showing some early results that are very positive. Change is at hand for Indian football in terms of talent, but like justice in India, it is torturously slow.