Now that the dust has settled and teams have displayed what they are capable of, it’s become clear that football culture has to change for India to have a chance of competing with the best, reports Vishnu Prasad
IT was a sight that few who had been following Indian football for a fair few years would have thought possible. More than 40,000 thronged the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi, the stands a sea of blue. And to the din they created, marched out an Indian football team to play in a World Cup match. Since that cold December day in 2013, when Sepp Blatter announced that India would be hosting the U-17 World Cup in 2017, football fans of the country had been looking forward to this moment, sometimes with a tinge of anxiety. On one hand, there was that surreal scenario where a team in Indian colours would be rubbing shoulders with the future superstars of world football, watched on by the entire world.
The optimists hoped for a point or even a win, as unrealistic as that scenario was. On the other, there was the all too likely chance of all that ending in embarrassment, a bunch of heavy defeats, a painful reminder that we did not belong on that stage. It’s been close to two weeks since that day and India’s ‘arrival on the world stage’ was almost immediately followed by its swift departure from it. So how did the boys do? Was it the first case? A performance that would infuse any Indian football fan with hope for a better future? Or was it the latter nightmare? The truth is that it was neither this nor that. There are plenty of positives to take home from the performances, especially the one against Colombia, where many will argue that India deserved a draw.
Even the cynics will admit that India gave their opponents a run for their money. There was the first half against USA where India’s defence frustrated a forward who was joining Werder Bremen and another who learnt his trade at Paris St Germain’s academy. There was the assuredness of Dheeraj Singh’s display, the goalkeeper often showing the kind of positional awareness his counterparts in the senior team would struggle to emulate. There was Anwar Ali, who has the potential to be a mainstay in India’s defence if he develops the right way. There was a team, who probably will not reach the kind of level everyone thought they would, but might still turn out to be significantly better than the current crop of senior players. Against Colombia, the kids displayed a willingness to fight. Going a goal down early in the second half, after an opening period where they had arguably the better chances, would have demoralised any team. Not India, who not only defended compactly but also went looking for the equaliser. When it arrived in the 82nd minute, it looked as if their approach had paid off. But football can be cruel, as the kids found themselves a goal down within a minute.
Amid the euphoria, they had forgotten to retain their shape, a consequence more of their inexperience than anything else. “They were so emotional. They forgot how to protect the goal after scoring,” Branimir Ujevic, head of FIFA’s technical study group at the tournament, would later evaluate. “They wanted to go to the stands and celebrate with fans. They will take a lot of lessons from this tournament.” They even managed to elicit words of praise from visiting coaches. “India really put up a fight,” said USA coach John Hackworth, following his side’s win on the opening day of the tournament. “They were too hard to break down. The two stoppers stood out and also the goalkeeper did a very good job. So, full credit to them.” On the other hand, it was obvious that these players, who had more money spent preparing them for the World Cup than any of their counterparts, are well behind the rest of the world in the basics. All the exposure tours and high-profile coaches were merely an expensive coat of paint over a poorly built wall. It might look impressive at the right moment, in the right lighting, but it was always going to a bit of pressure away from crumbling.
Welcome to reality
And crumble is what they did, rather spectacularly in the second half against Ghana. The post-match press release that the All India Football Federation sent out called it a ‘game of two halves’. Yet the only difference between the two halves was that Ghana got what they deserved in the second — three goals. The Ghana coach would later admit that this was a deliberate tactic. He had seen past AIFF’s coat of paint — their wall might seem intimidating at first, might even withstand the first barrage of attacks, but there was no way it was going to resist over a longer period of time. For that, the foundations have to be strong. When everything was said and done, India were dead last. Games played — three, games lost — three, points — zero and a goal difference of minus eight. The only positive was the one in the goals scored section, Jeakson Singh’s futile, albeit historic effort against Colombia. North Korea were the next worst team, finishing level of points (or lack of them), but conceding fewer goals. Chile went into their final game with no points and the same goal difference as India.
A defeat would have sent them last. But they somehow held on for a draw against Mexico, making India officially the worst team of the 2017 U-17 World Cup. Worse than New Caledonia, who most people here hadn’t heard of until they came here to play the World Cup. The reaction to India’s maiden World Cup journey were immediately divided into two camps, one toeing the official, hyperbolic line of a ‘new dawn’ and the team ‘winning a billion hearts’. The other camp begged to differ, divided only by who they chose to pin the blame on. The same journalists who applauded Luis Norton de Matos into the press conference post the Colombia game chose to wag fingers at him after the Ghana one. “Three games, nine goals, what do you have to say?” someone asked him, as De Matos bristled in silent rage. Many others chose to go after the federation for adopting the wrong approach, yet others blamed former coach Nicolai Adam for some ineffectual scouting. But in a paradox that would have made Schrodinger proud, all these parties are both innocent and guilty at the same time.
Was the AIFF’s approach flawed? Yes, but what else could they have done in three years with a bunch of players who had already missed out on a valuable chunk of technical education? Were ILeague and ISL clubs to blame? Absolutely, for only three players had the name of a club against theirs in the India team sheet, all three from little-known Minerva Punjab FC. But can anyone reject outright their argument that the environment of uncertainty and short-termism, that plagues the league structure in India, offered them little incentive for youth development? Could Nicolai Adam have done better with scouting? Maybe, but would he really have found players who were technically as good as the Americans and the Ghanaians?
IT HAS TO START EARLY
De Matos himself summed up Indian football’s predicament succinctly on the day they crashed out. “It’s important to build the culture,” he said. “India needs a football culture, with four, five and six-year-olds playing football. We were not playing Mauritius or Nepal. We were playing against Ghana, USA, and Colombia in a World Cup and I would like to see how India’s senior teams perform against the senior teams of these nations. I would have loved to play New Caledonia or Chile at this moment but people shouldn’t have expected this team to play Ghana and win. New Zealand lost 0-13 in 1997 and it is now at every World Cup.”