RESURGENCE OF INDIAN NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM

        In 1950 when the Indian Football Team was asked to participate in the World cup, they allegedly rejected the invitation on grounds of FIFA’s ban on barefoot play. But after nearly sixty two years we are yet to make an appearance in the World Cup. This is a poor reflection of a team that once dominated the entire Asian continent by becoming the first Asian country to reach the semi-finals of football in Olympics. It is not that we don’t have enough quality to produce a world class players, but we generally lack in the style of play, physique and mainly in development of Infrastructure.

As things stand, the Indian football players are as skilled as their European counter-parts, but their way of training makes European players world class players. Look at players like Baichung Bhutia, I.M.Vijayan, they are highly skilled and talented but the style of play is different from the Europeans. Moreover our infrastructure and local leagues are not up to a world class level. So it is necessary to send our players to foreign countries to train  and  experience the world class infrastructure.

       The impact created by Baichung Bhutia on Indian football is huge and unimaginable. He honed his skills effectively during his three year stint with England second division club Bury FC. He will always inspire the current and future generation players to try their luck at European football.

As we all know, India is a sleeping giant, top European football clubs have started to invest in Indian football by setting up their academies to identify the young Indian talents and train them to reach top levels in football.

There are many people behind the growth of Indian football, but former coach Bob Houghton’s futuristic idea of developing young players paid dividends in the form of good performances from the U-22 team at AFC Asian championship qualifying rounds. The U-22 team under Aussie coach Arthur Papas managed to defeat Lebanon and Turkmenistan and  hold Asian giant UAE to a draw and show a spirited performance against strong opponents like Iraq and Oman before going down by a small margin.

The year 2012 is a great year for Indian football as many players from India followed the footsteps of legends  Mohammed Salim, Baichung by successfully attending trials at top European clubs. Indian football team current captain Sunil Chhetri went one step further by signing a contract with Portuguese giants sporting Lisbon’s reserve side, thus making him the second Indian player after Bhutia to play professional football in Europe. Moreover U-22 football team goalkeeper, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu attended a trial at English Premier League team Wigan Athletic and his countryman and India’s No 1 custodian, Subrata paul attended a two week trial at RB Leipzig, a German fourth division club owned by Red Bull . Even though RB Leipzig plays in fourth division, its infrastructure and coaching methods are world class and it also owns an artificial grass ground for training. And Mehtab Hussain is another player who attended trails for a Scottish club.

Appointing  Wim Koevermans as the head coach of Indian football team was another giant step taken by the AIFF. The Dutchmen who rose to fame with his unique methods of coaching the Netherlands Youth team, which developed players like Arjen Robben Robin Van Persie etc.. is aiming to change the face of Indian football team. The time is now for India to make best use of its resources and aim to qualify for the FIFA world cup in the next 10 years.

-V.ARUN KUUMAR