The most common question asked by millions of Indian football fans across the globe. Another question is when will India qualify for the FIFA world cup?. Answer to these questions can’t be explained in a single post and its a vast topic. So let me emphasis a particular point here.
Start young:
In my opinion one of the main reasons is, we start to play a little late. Normally kids in our country start to play any sport around the age of about 10-12 years. But kids in European countries start to play early and are acquiring skills faster. A 12-yr old kid from European countries can match the technique and skill of 15-yr old kid in India. I am not saying that we lack potential. We have many talented players in our country but we failed to nurture them from the beginning. We have seen videos featuring young Messi juggling a tennis ball, Ronaldinho netting tremendous goals in a futsal, etc the list goes on. The thing which I try to convey is that footballing nations spot the potential talents at a young age and guide them in the best possible way to reach greater heights and we failed in that area.
But that’s not the case now in recent times, our nation witnessed the exponential rise in football. Not to forget that our Blue Tigers managed to jump from 173 to 101 in the FIFA, rankings in the short period under Constantine which is a great achievement. A lot of young talents were given opportunities under his regime. Also, under Igor Stimac lot of young players were given the chance to play for national colours such as Sahal Abdul Samad, Lallianzuala Chhangte, Amarjit Singh Kiyam, Narendar Gahlot, etc and the list goes on. Thanks to I-league and ISL which helped to spot the potential young guns of our nation. On the whole, our national team is going in the right direction and it’s a long way to reach our target but we will reach there soon. And we will see our Indian flag flying high in the world’s biggest stage (world cup).
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