AFC Challenge Cup’08 – my take on India and the chances…
If you dint know, there is an high profile football tournament happening here in our own very Hyderabad.
Barren Inside, glorious Outside!
Image courtesy : google images
India has already played Afghanistan,Tajikistan and Turkmenistan on a morose football pitch, which made one Indian player quip ” our grounds are worse than the Portuguese 3rd division teams” . The stadium can host around 30,000 but hardly 1000 turn up for a match. On an Orkut form, i voiced out that AIFF completely failed to market this footballing spectacle, where as there are counter arguments too; from people who think that the tournament did get its share of coverage.
If India manages to qualify from the group and advance, one can only hope for good crowds in the pearl city. Hyderabad has an inspirational footballing history . This is an Irony in Indian Football, good stadiums doesn’t have the crowd to fill in. This tournament would have been a success, if it happened in Kerala, Bengal or it would have been a massive success if it had happened in the North-east. Delhi, which came out with outstanding crowd last time around for the Nehru Cup would also have fitted the bill. But, we don’t really have the infrastructure to match up with the ones in Hyderabad or Delhi else where and this where it all fails.
Kolkata as always get its share of good football, thanks to the authorities, they have a good city league and obviously the largest contingent of football fans in India. Delhi too, thanks to our North Eastern brothers and sisters, did come up with huge crowds behind the team in the Nehru Cup. If AFC Challenge Cup’08 had happened in the North-East, it would have been successful and a necessary recognition for their overwhelming presence in Indian Football. Sadly that has not happened.
The first match against Afghanistan was a moronic affair. India huffed and puffed to a win. The next match against Tajikistan was also not a spectacular affair, we managed a draw and the final group match against Turkmenistan had the Gacchibowli pitch at its worst. incessant rains had made the pitch a slush pool and India seemed very comfortable playing on it. Thanks to the monsoons that belt in Bengal, Goa and other parts of India, our players are not alien to these conditions. The team played considerably well against Turkmenistan compared to their previous outings in the tournament.
On the outset we have formidable team. In goal keeper’s position we have Subarata Paul, who have managed to put up a decent show in the tournament so far. The defense comprising Mahesh Gawli, Deepankar Mondal, Anwar Ali, Samir Naik, Gourmangi Singh and Surukumar is a decent line up, but unfortunately we did not find a stabilised partnership in the defense until the last game in which Anwar Ali and Gourmangi put up a good show. Mahesh Gawli for all the hype has not lived up to the expectations and Deepankar Mondal is out of the tourney because of an Injury. Anwar Ali and Gourmangi did put up a good show in the match against Turkmenistan, Surukumar and Samir Naik also had a good game. To get to final and win the tournament; to earn a place in the 2011 AFC cup, our defense need to be alert; on their toes and put up a spirited display.
The midfield comprising N.P.Pradeep, Climax Lawrence, Renedy Singh, Steven Dias and Clifford Miranda is a star studded one, if one wants to term it so. So far in the tournament, this very engine of the team has not worked well and it was very obvious in the first 2 outings we had in this tournament. Steven Dias by-far seems to be the best (in form) player in midfield. I have become a fan of his spot kicks, he is good with his searing runs and crosses from the flank. This guy surely have his shooting boots on; in this tournament. N.P.Pradeep looks rusty but did show glimpses of good touch in the match against Turkmenistan. I am very opinionated about Climax; he did score a goal in the opening match, but i have always felt, he is not up to the job. Renedy Singh is an experienced customer, but for his experience he lacks all the composure he needs to have. I hope we have some one to replace this player in the future and for me the one who should be replacing him should not be Clifford Miranda. Clifford looked completely out of sorts in that position in the match he played against Tajikistan. For all the work he puts in, his final ball is awful and he always runs in to dead ends loosing the ball. I am not Bob Houghton or a “special one” – Jose, but if am to try my luck, i will bring in Mohammed Rafi of Mahindra United in there. Rafi is a decent forward, has good physique and can add some steel in our midfield.
And finally the forwards; in Sunil Chetri we have a talented player who might make it as big as Baichung in future. Chetri is a wily youngster who has loads of skill in him but in terms of physique i think he lacks a bit. He is not that type of a ball-holding forward but a nippy player who can make searing runs. If there is a strong support from our midfield , i believe this player might excel but to reach where Baichung is, he needs to put in a lot of effort. At 31, Baichung is definitely the trump card for India and this man always lives up to the expectations. He knows where the ball needs to head in a football match and his tally of 3 goals in the tournament proves that. I really hope he helps us to win this tournament. On the whole, this combination has worked well for India and we can only hope to see better performances from Sunil and Baichung. Sushil Kumar is another played who was tried out by Bob Houghton in one of the matches, but he looked completely out of sorts and was not getting any sort of support from Sunil chetri. Apart from a puny short which he took directly to the opposition goal keeper, he rarely impressed me.
It is not fair to dissect Indian football in terms of their counterparts in Europe but there are some points that needs to be examined and one of them is about the tactics that the team employ. While watching AFC cup, i felt we are over relaint on long balls in to the opposition half. There are two reasons for Bob Houghton to employ this : the opposition teams are better ball players than us and to override the stamina problem that might arise due to short passes and formations. Turkmenistan on the outset looked like better ball players than India but the slush in the Gacchibowli stadium did not come of any help to their skills and India emerged victorious because of their long ball tactics. With a shorty in Sunil Chetri who mostly plays as the ball-holding forward; can we take India all the way to victory in AFC Challenge Cup’08 ? I wonder. The only apprehension in me is Sunil Chetri’s fragility while playing as a ball holding player. The second apprehension is the position of Climax Lawerence – the holding midfielder. Is he a holding mid field player or is he not? With Renedy/Clifford on the left wing, Steven Dias on the right, the middle of the pitch is left over to Climax and Pradeep. Pradeep has been scoring goals, so he plays in attacking position and that makes Climax the defensive option in the midfield and i am not too happy with his defenisve abilities. I think, we need to bring in a terrier of a player there, someone like Gattuso, Flamini, Velso to name some. Again, Gattuso, Flamini and Velso are products of an entirely different and efficient system. Comparing Climax to them is utterly unfair of me, but i think India needs to find a player there, who is a terrier who can attack and sustain in the opposition attacks. Give me a break, we have a population of 1.3 billion, we will find one terrier of a player who can replace Climax.
Shortcomings apart, it will be great if India can manage a victory in AFC Challenge Cup’08 and that will earn us a berth in the Asia Cup played amongst the higher ranking teams in Asia. 1984 is the last time we managed this and that is a long way back in history. Then again, it will be success for India in another tournament in a short span of time, the other being the Nerhu Cup. Some how if we manage to win AFC Challenge Cup’08, i would rate it as a bigger achievement than the Nehru cup withstanding the sad part of it – the team playing to an empty stadium!
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On another note; the media is buzzing all about Indian football. You know that Manchester and Arsenal were here and picked up some boys for their 1-month training “stunt” in UK. Bayern Munich and Oliver Khan carried forward the “news-baton” as he and his team played before a crowd of 1,20,000. Then it happened so that our globe-trotting Sports minister M.S.Gill was with Roman Calderon watching the Wimbledon final and now it seems that Gill is going to bring Real for an exhibition match, though this is the first time i am hearing a government initiated exhibition match to promote football. Anyway thanks to him, the “news-baton” was successfully carried and duly handed it over to whom, you know? Yes, the team with a want- away star – Manchester United; They expressed their willingness to look towards India for some pre-season matches. That is almost all the top European clubs being linked with India in some sort or the other. It has not ended there, Paul Mony Samuel of AFC has voiced out the importance of Chelsea, who are providing them the technical know-how to implement the Vision India project in India. Fair and square! No not yet, it all had to end here : Satyam Computer Services Ltd. is the official IT Services Provider to the FIFA World Cups in 2010 (Johannesburg) and in 2014 (Brazil)
Now it is the turn of Baichung and his boys to make some waves and share a pie of the clinical memory ( if AFC Challenge Cup has some prize money, they can very well enjoy that too!) our press hold. Over to “regret” part – If you feel that you are missing out on a lot; that is happening with Indian football, pull up your sleeves and subscribe/bookmark this broadcast : Indian Football Digest.
A small time Indian Football News broadcast! My broadcast caught out Satyam @ FIFA, decide on your own, if it small time or ……
Name leaves you without sponsorship.. in Indian Football
Mohammedan Sporting Club, founded in 1892 has a long lineage in Indian Football. The team, which has been promoted to next i-league; failed to gather sponsorship for the coming season. It seems they had approached Vivel ITC, but the deal did not materialize. Why? The name it seems is a freaking stumbling block! “Mohammedan”.
Terrified, is what i am, to see such a news. The company promotes its biscuits and cookies using a bollywood Muslim but cant provide sponsorship to Mohammedan Sporting Club because the team name might look like ITC Mohammedan Sporting Club. That will that be the case with any other names too , right? … if it was Vodafone, it would have been Vodafone Mohammedan Sporting Club, which sounds even sillier than the other.
How about Infosys Mohammedan Sporting Club? There are some inherent problems with our corporates; In his book; The Age of Kali, William Dalrymple remembers his trip to infosys office in Bangalore and gives a very queer name to the employees of Infosys – The Brahminical Computer Boffins, a thinly veiled assault on Infosys and a very valid truth. I don’t claim that there are no other castes working in Infosys or there is a class hierarchy working there , somehow i always felt that the company brandishes a Brahminical arrogance. And this very arrogance is characterized in various other organizations in various degrees. For a club like Mohammedans, they will struggle to attract sponsorship.
We have heard about Madhavi Kapoor; who wanted to sell her flat in Pune and found that her efforts were being thwarted because her buyer was a Muslim. Now, we hear Mohammedan Sporting Club is being denied sponsorship, these two instances are manifestations of some notions inherent in our society. For me, it is an eye opener to the sense of intolerance that is prevalent in our society. Infact, i will be extremely happy, if a corporate comes and backs Mohammedan Sporting and i wish such a thing happen,s to squash my extreme cynicism.
Not that i am trying to be yet another god man, i was proved wrong when i made a dubious prediction in my Caste/Communal blog about Kerala last time around.
For a good cry; check out this Indian Football news digest. (Get all your hot.. hot news about Indian football here!)
Indian hockey will not crumble without Charlesworth: M.S. Gill
Sometimes people just make me laugh. I wonder if there is anything more to crumble!
Check the news here : Indian hockey will not crumble without Charlesworth: M.S. Gill
This man Gill is also planning to bring Real Madrid to India. If they come down, i might watch the match but this is the first time, i am hearing a governmental effort in conducting Exhibition matches. I wonder if they can spend that money in developing some good football academies. My life will go on, I can watch Real Madrid on TV and Youtube.
Kozhikode Football League – Who is your favorite?
If you did not know, Kozhikode has its own football league – KDFA – “Videocon” Kozhikode District Football League. Hardly will anyone be knowing the teams which play in this league. Each game attracts 100’s of spectators, some players have been picked by professional teams. As such after Olympian Rahman, there has not emerged any spectacluar players form this town. Still there is a lot of enthusisatic football fans here. If any of them, drop by, do cast your vote for your favorite team and do drop in bits and pieces of information about the league and football in general in Kozhikode. The last biggest thing happened in this town for football was that Arsenal were down to conduct some trials for kids and i am hearing that Nokia is going to sponsor a tournament here… I am eager to gather know something about this.
Lets not forget Sevens football here, I know some Tournaments that happen in Nellur (near Feroke), Zamorins High School, Cheruvannur (Panchayat ground!) and so on. If you people are willing do enlighten me about the sevens scene also… you can vey well go ahead.
it will be apprecieated, if people could leave a comment, so as to know who supports whom.
Viva Kerala and Kerala Football….
There are supporters, the only problem is that their attention is slightly skewed outwards, they literally don’t have anything to love about in Kerala football. That latest distraction being the thrashing by Punjab in Santosh Trophy, they piped us 5-0. No more is there a Vijayan, Sathayan, Chakco or Sharaf Ali to save us. There are of course fringe names, O.K Javed, Asif Saheer and so on, that is not enough, they are no colossal figures.
N.P Pradeep is the current biggest thing in Indian Football scene from Kerala, but so detached that he is right now, he is more of an “Indian” player for all Keralaites right now. He has indeed a long way to go, and i wish him all the best for his future, one day i reckon he will be rewarded for all his abilities. In fact he is well rewarded monetary wise, I-league footballers don’t live in penury anymore. ( but chennai League players might)
Viva Kerala matches for the last i-league’s edition generated decent crowd presence, it is not anymore those eras where spectators used to fill in the stands. The stadium has increased it capacity but fans have deserted football in the last decade. When all the buzz about Bob Houghton, the Indian Football team, N.P. Pradeep and State associations happen in the national media, there is a slumber in Kerala Football.
I constantly keep my self updated with Indian Football through a broadcast that i created with Google Reader. I hardly to get to see any news about Kerala Football. The last time when the feeds were not greyed out for kerala Football were during the AFC Vision India program launch at kozhikode and then in the Santosh Trophy super debacle under the tutelage of Victor Manjilla who disguised the Calicut University Team (Inside Information) as a Kerala team. Super, a befitting blow on our face as to realise and understand what football is now and grow up.
The biggest football tourney in Kerala right now is the yearly E.K Nayanar Football tourney conducted in Kannur, which sort of is an overt brandishing act of corportocracy that has crept in to CPIM. Last time around there were serious allegations about the money that was pumped in for this tournament, they claim it was from an spurious business man based in Singapore – Pharis Aboobacker. That shows how much of a spectacle it is.
Kozhikkode which used to attract huge crowds for “antiquated” tournaments like Sait Nagjee, never witness any good football matches these days other than the Kozhikkode 1st Division league matches and the occasional Viva kerala matches when they were in i-league. Everybody is resorted to television for good football in Euro cup or EPL. And obviously attention is slightly skewed outwards.
I still believe Viva could have capitalized the situation, when they played in Kozhikode, they could have earned the respect of this football loving town with a little bit of good PR at their disposal. Those kind of attempts are never seen from the so called Premier club of Kerala. In fact dreading stories of how they abandoned their Goal keeper who met with an accident – breaking his leg while he was playing for them spread in the local news papers. And now that they have been relegated to the 1-league 2, we will not hear anything about them.
For Viva to be the foremost club that a Keralite can look up to, they are putting up a pathetic show with these kind of unfavourable news spreading in the media. There were in fact other allegations too against them after they axed a bunch of players who helped them qualify for i-league. That makes them a spurious prospect to work your career out with.
While drawing inspiration from Santosh Trophy which Bob Houghton has called for scrapping ; terming it antiquated and unwanted , Punjab the champions of this edition of Santosh Trophy has been creating quite a buzz in the Indian Football scene for something, other than what every one has to speak about – JCT Mills and its players (notably Sunil Chetri) in the i-league.
Few weeks prior to the Santosh trophy victory, news popped up in my feed reader that JCT Mills have reached a understanding with Wolverhampton Wanderers to promote football in the region . These are indeed efforts that keep football in the news and that quietly raise it status in a society. These kind of Initiatives helps the club in offering different prospects for upcoming players in terms of dreams and opportunities, if everything works out favorably. A link which seems to have vanished now revealed that HAL scouts picked up a J&k player with a monthly salary of 25,000, that is marvelous.
Kerala too created some news but that was of their clueless display against Services and Punjab. The same is the case with the premier club in Kerala too, Viva after sliding back in to i-league 2, they rarely produced any buzz and the latest i have heard about them is that their couple of players joined Pune.FC. great!
This kind of complacency in terms of creating news and going in to slumber wont help them in having a prolonged presence in Indian football. Nascent clubs like Mumbai FC, Pune FC and various other academies are trying aggressively to assert themselves in this not so bullish business area. I presume Viva still has time in regrouping and asserting themselves before such sort of a not so large footballing affair crops up from kerala.
Clubs like Premier Tyres, Cochin Port Trust, Kerala Police, F. C Cochin have all donned the scene and faded away without leaving any trace. Probably the lone survivor from this spurious group is SBT, which has least acceptance as a “state team”.
Kerala police (Vijayan, Pappachan, Sharaf Ali) was the best loved among these, while i am sure there were great hopes pinned to the so called first professional club : FC Cochin, which met with a sad and ignominious death. I am quite convinced that in near future, a club even big as Viva will not emerge from Kerala.
A discussion in an Orkut community for Viva Kerala says that money is what is eluding them. This is quite a valid reason, it is almost impossible to raise funds for a football club in India. But in Viva’s case there is a lot of mis management too that has happened, because right from its inception, there has been controversies brewing about players, coaches and so on. Quite contrary to the pathetic situation they potray, national trends do unveil on a smaller scale, there are corporate sponsorships for football. The Goan Santosh Trophy team was sponsored by Budweiser. There is no need to leap over to Goa to asses the situation as the Kozhikode City 1st division league is sponsored by Videocon!
The discussion thread also reveals that Viva almost signed a deal with Hutch last season but that got dissolved as Hutch was bought over by Vodafone. The sponsorship deal getting dissolved was sad but the attendance had to do a lot with how Viva projected them as a club, it doesnt hold so much good will among the public. Kozhikode is still one of those cities in Kerala which will draw a decent crowd for good football matches and the problem was Viva never could get in to the good books of the society.
A football club needs to build a mutual relationship with a society for its survival in India. Football in India is not a game where the whole family throng in the stadium to catch a glimpse of Sachin, Saurav and now joining this list – Sharukh Khan in real. It is not a game that has invaded our living room, it supporters are niche.
I am sure, in kozhikode if SEPT plays a match, it will draw a decent crowd and the 1st division league matches also witness decent crowd. Viva lacked support in terms of spectators in a football friendly place like kozhikode because of the lack of good will they could create and their pathetic PR record. The former kerala police team easily could graduate in to the hearts of Keralites, it instilled a sense of pride and with many victories , joy too.
It will be a tad unfair, if i square everything to gloom and doom. Football marks a 30% percent growth every year in India . AFC’s Vision India project is employing a school league in Kerala, which will only help our football, if it materialises and run.
Viva could also join the bandwagon and needs to spot talents when they are young, establish an academy, create some good will and gradually earn a place in the heart of every football lover in kerala. An academy system will help them in future, i think it is better they develop talent from their neighbourhoods than spending exorbitantly on foreigners, most of whom are average footballers ,who eventually migrate to some other clubs – Goan or Bengali after a season .
I wonder if Viva’s business men owners are to pre-occupied with business that they hardly give a damn about the club and its functioning.
Now a little bit of marketing :
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Top- scorer get Rs. 500…. thats football in India….
I stumbled upon this news piece through my Google reader Indian football news broadcast. Multi Million IPL is up and running and on the other side we see Chennai Football Association (CFA) rewarding the top-scorer in their league with Rs. 500. You wont even get vegetables for a month with that amount, Will you, with inflation hovering around 7.5% ??
Wonder no one gives a damn about Indian Football?? This is it, If you play with passion and decide to be a footballer, you might die in those neglected dungeons. Do we need to talk about other sports?
Is it that the associations don’t get any money?? I wonder…
Buildings or Playgrounds? Let us vote…. (A debate about kerala)
I think my neighbors hate me because I still venture in to the old ground where children still manage to rake up some dust playing football and cricket. I was a regular there; I studied my lessons of football, cricket and kabbadi (a bit of all these with football being the loved) from that open space. A large portion of me mentally and physically existed there for quite a while in my life. It was an open space – privately held, largely neglected – around 1.75 acres. Though, it dint see the birth of an international athlete or a footballer, I am quite sure, most of the youngsters in around my neighborhood played and honed their skills there. To its credit, it can always boast a hoard of district league level footballers practicing there.
I strolled on to that same ground, when I visited home last weekend. I was choked, it is surrounded by concrete buildings on all possible sides – new and old alike they appeared to be some kind of monsters; up for gobbling something. On them perched all my neighbors with their vicious eyes carefully monitoring the kids and players, each time the ball rose high up in the air, they hurled derisive shouts. Ball games are always a menace, many a times the ball crosses forbidden borders, they break windows and cast huge dirt marks on the costly emulsion covered walls and at times knock you down with a blow. It won’t kill; I am sure it won’t.
These kind of cloistered grounds dot every corner and every village in Kerala. Open spaces like these serves as a measuring ground for the civic sense a literate Malayalee hold. The derisive comments that fling from the neighboring compounds may put your whole family lineage at stake. Right from great- grand fathers to you; no one is spared. If you are determined and don’t give a damn about this, some people even gather courage to spill broken glass pieces and metal shreds in the ground. People playing football rarely play without boots these days. They harass children by telling that they will complaint to the authorities. I am sure; the governmental agencies will be too keen to keep the kids scared.
Waste lands and dried up paddy fields have always catered to the needs of the local children as a play ground. Come summer and you will find loads of sports enthusiasts playing and watching games in these open spaces or at least this was a spectacle some years back. Space has drastically dwindled, waste lands have been encroached and paddy fields have been filled up for construction. It was a Houdini act, it just was disappearing, you could feel it, every other day space dwindling – another building eating up that precious space. The feeling was drab and cold, I felt the good air, and the visual peace and that happy feeling of an open sky were consumed by these buildings. A decade back or so, the neighboring house was a mile ahead from our compound’s boundary; today it is hardly 20 feet. I feel voyeur-ed and stripped; it feels horrible. I hear, there is something called a ‘land mafia” in Kerala, the word is omnipresent, it gleams in television, it is in print and in the radio. The minister, the local politician and my neighborhood barber laments about the mafia. But who are they? Are they the one who are gobbling up the space? If so, why aren’t they visible? It is a helpless situation, a situation where the kids are confined to concrete spaces; there are no games other than cycling on the tarred roads and street cricket or worse, the computer games that stifle any physical exercise.
This scorching summer is no difference; there are kids out in the sun, indefatigable and vivacious as ever. There are still a few, a few wretched of the earth wanting some space to sweat it out than being in the cool comforts of a concrete mansion. The mantra of a spotless, tan-less skin has not yet caught up with these children. It is not the same anymore, most of the wear proper football boots and jerseys. It is not anymore the era of shirts with names written with varnish or the left over window paint. Football is also not the same; there are more and more trickeries on the field. The kind of influence Christiano Ronaldo and Manchester united are mustering in the age of TV is astounding. But there is one thing that is missing – play grounds.
Here comes the Honorable (??) sports minister of Kerala, who during the inauguration of Vision India Program in Kozhikkode has rallied for securing 10,000 playgrounds and 1000 stadiums within 3 years of time. I don’t know what made him make such a comment, who prompted him? The ever lambasting and didactic intelligentsia in Kerala, have they recognized the need for play grounds? Will they ever publish articles in magazines quoting Derrida, Kant and Foucault analyzing the need for play grounds or will they dismiss it as another attempt of invasion by the flourishing culture industry? I am not too sure, but the Communist lineage which gives quite an emphasis on discipline and sporting activities is eroding for sure. Till now, the strong network of Government Schools provided the state with its share of sporting heroes. The Kerala state school Sports meet is a still a spectacle with intense media attention and evaluation. Again, Government schools are on the back foot; private schools are cropping up every where and we all know what happens to sports over there in these private schools.
Now that our young comrades in SFI have lost out completely to their elderly members who are lapping up with all the “community” honchos in deciding the future of education, they can very well take up this issue. Education is gone to the dogs, at least fight for some play grounds or prevent them from being gobbled up by the land mafia. A worthwhile cause to fight for and if the present government keeps their promise of securing 10,000 playgrounds and 1000 stadiums or at least half the number, I will vote for them hands down in the next elections.
Here is a crude poll, a crude one that might put all of you in trouble. But, i still think a play ground is better than a moronic concrete structure.
Corporate Social Negligence! 
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