NEW DELHI: A day before India U-17's final World Cup encounter against Ghana, when the euphoria of their performance versus Colombia was yet to die down, AIFF's head of youth development Richard Hood stood on a stage at the Amity University near Noida. He was speaking at the AIFF-SAI Coaching Conference and his presentation had the kind of frankness one does not normally expect from federation officials.
He flashed pictures of Marcus Rashford at his club aged 7, Leo Messi and Wayne Rooney at their clubs aged six. He left it to the audience to ask the question to themselves — what was Aniket Jadhav or Sanjeev Stalin doing at that age?
The U-17 World Cup has shown India many things, that the country can host a major tournament without too many hitches, that its players can indeed rise up to a level where they are competitive at a continental level, if not a global one. But the most vital lesson it has taught us is that no amount of exposure or coaching can bridge the gap between us and the world, if it comes too late. Neither the Colombia or the Ghana teams that beat India went on the kind of exposure tours that India did or received the kind of top notch coaching, yet were technically and physically better. It says a lot that of all the teams competing here, only India has a foreign coach (unless you include English coach Steve Cooper, who is Welsh).
No Indian team has perhaps been as scrutinised as this U-17 lot, with all visiting officials and coaches having a thing or two to say about them. And despite domestic media being saturated with all the hyperbole about 'winning a million hearts' and 'the future being bright', the words of these experts hint otherwise.
FIFA's technical director Steven Martens, in an interview with Express, said that the model via which this team was developed was not right. "You can spend all the money you want and take them around the world," says Oscar Gonzalez Diaz, a visiting coach who works with New South Wales football, "But none of that will make up for what they miss out between the ages of 5-12."
It is something that Tom Byer, the grassroots coach behind the rise of Japanese football, agrees with. "The Indian team was much better than what many people thought they would. But you can clearly see the gap is quite large between them and the best in the world," he says.
"I don't know enough about Indian football or where each individual player came from. But I can tell you from experience of working all over the world, that one of the main problems in Asia is that the kids start football too late. They don't master that technical component and then you have to coach, try to master that system. It's like putting kids who have not mastered basic mathematics, in an advanced mathematics class."
It is not that the AIFF is not aware of this problem. The concept of Baby Leagues, that they have developed, would solve this problem partially. But with this team done at the U-17 World Cup, the focus is on taking the same route for the next generation.
"The current U-16 team will follow the same path as the U-17 team (in terms of foreign exposure), except that we would like them to play in more competitions," AIFF secretary Kushal Das says. There is also talk of hosting the U-20 World Cup, which would no doubt be good for the current U-17 team. But how long can one firefight at the top without solving the problem at the roots?