Official Indian(South Asian Champs) Football Thread [R]

Thanks Poorvi.

Spherical, good luck for the match I hope for everyone it is competitive and hopefully some Japan clubs will be impressed with the India players.

I like our coach Nayeemuddin because he is a fighter and he can sound overconfident but he is hard and that is the way India must be. Can you beleive this coach orders his players to keep their hair short for team discipline? Lets see how the match goes I cant wait

 

Chandu,

The game begins in Japanese time 19:20.
I don't know where you live, so please
convert the time zone as you wish.

Bhutiafan82,

It would probably be good for India soccer
if they start having J-Leaguers for their
country. J-League certainly welcomes foreign
players if they are capable.

Coach Nayeemuddin sounds brave. He knows he
is facing a giant with all odds against him and
he shows no cowardice. He also manages to
remain respectful and humorous.
It sounds like he can move India soccer a level or
two to me.

 

Great website to follow the Indian matches :

http://www.indianfootball.com/specials/asiancup/index2.html

 

India doing well , still 0-0 after about 30 mins.

www.goalzz.com

 

Japan - India 1-0 Half time soon

 

Japan - India 6-0 . maybe finish now...

 

I don't know if the coach is number 1 choice to blame, but he did fail to
live up to his words, I guess.
I wonder what he will say in a post-match interview?
Would anyone be interested?

 

Re: Chances of india (SOUTH ASIAN CHAMPIONS)

Another Guju on BigSoccer.

Sachin

 

Re: Chances of india (SOUTH ASIAN CHAMPIONS)

Indian soccer has a long, long way to go... There's a total lack of infrastrcture. Hopefully companies such as Jet and Infosys will put some money into the game.

Sachin

 

We lost 6-0. but atleast we can find solace in the fact that we let in only 1 goal in the first half. If I have to single out anybody for his brilliant individual performance, it has to be the goalkeeper Nandi. Had it not been for his efforts, the final scoreline would have looked like an one sided badminton scoreline, and not the tennis scoreline, that we finally saw. We employed an ultra defensive approach with a 4-5-1 formation. Suprisingly, the Japanese too played with a 3-6-1 formation. I dont know why Zico, who inspite of being a Brazilian choses such a defensive formation? Who was he afraid of? Bhutia?? Speaking of Bhutia, our lone forward, I must confess I am utterly dissapointed in him. He just doesnt have what it takes to be a good forward. he can't even keep possesion when challenged lightly by a defender. Whenever Bhutia got the ball, he was either tackled, that too when he was trying to make up his mind weather to tackle the defender or to pass or he made one of those awful passes which the Japanese easily intercepted. Apart from a first half free kick we were nowhere near their goal. A poor performance considering all the big talk that our coach indulged in. We don't need a coach who talks a lot and performs little. This present coach can try his hand at politics. His working style suits the parliament more than it suits our football team. We need a German coach. A person who makes his action speak, and doesnt indulge in pre match controversy or make big claims. What makes me angry althemore is that I had skipped work, complaining of a severe stomach ache, to see an improved performance. Now I have to work this Saturday to compensate for that day off.
Otto Rehaggel, or Ottmar Hitzfeld ( i think he's clubless now) for India.
Good game Japan.
Spherical, please do post the post-game interview.

 

Okay. I will do a quick and dirty translation on post-match interview of India
coach on below, based on article in Yahoo! Japan's Sportsnavi:
http://sportsnavi.yahoo.co.jp/soccer/japan/kaiken/200602/at00008058.html
Note that the link above leads to second page of interview with Zico, but
interview with India coach is on the bottom of page.

Coach: We should not have lost this many goals. The first one was due to a
mistake (by India DF). Japan is one of the big names in Asia, but giving away
this many goals is unacceptable.

Media: India was doing well in the first half. With what themes were you
defending against Japan?

Coach: Japan is ranked 18th by FIFA (as of 2006 February) and a big name.
But we tried to play brave and fearless with more weight on defense.
Even then the 1st goal triggered our downfall. That mistake in passing was
what we should not have done.



The interview ends here, at least in the article. I guess he really didn't want
to keep making statements that could lead to criticisms.

And by the way, today Japan was playing with 4-4-2 system actually. 3-6-1 is
what Japan used against USA on 10th this month (and against Bahrain and
Mexico back in 2005), but 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 are the systems Japan usually uses.

 

Re: Chances of india (SOUTH ASIAN CHAMPIONS)

Yeah, we're everywhere. Well, except we're not any good at sports... or spending money.

Poor result for India, again. Like Sachin said and like we all know really, the infrastructure is terrible and the AIFF is a joke. One can hope that the growing companies like Reliance and Wipro put some money behind it, but they're probably more likely to invest in cricket, where they know they'll get a good return. Disappointing that we can't find twenty or so players and a couple of managers out of a billion people who can assemble a decent squad.

 

awww Thanks

 

Re: Chances of india (SOUTH ASIAN CHAMPIONS)

hmmmm. Its not just a question of investemnt. look at Nigeria, they do not have any big backers. There is at any point of time a big civil war or a major skirmish amongst its many ethnic or religious groups. yet they perform on the world stage.
If you follow corporate sponsorship of events in India ( i closely have, as its a part of my work), you will notice that most sponsors, who invest into sports (read cricket) are MNC's based in India. Like Pepsi, Black and Decker , Haier. It is these who generally are able to generate funds at a level which can make a serious change in the infrastructure. One of the very few times an Indian MNC sponsored a sport, it was Kingfisher sponsoring the Indian Football League. But due to various factors, including relative strength of the companies, to lesser public intrest in the sports, etc even with Indian private sector sponsorship, Indian Football hasnt been able to launch itself. It needs much more corporate help, if it has to genuinely revamp its infrastructure. And for that kind of money, you need outside MNC's to sponsor you. And that aint gonna happen unless you give them a reason to sponsor you, ie perform.
So its a vicious circle.

PS: Warum Achtung?? Sie wohnen in Deutschland?

 

Re: Chances of india (SOUTH ASIAN CHAMPIONS)

Nein.

It is genuinely disappointing that the infrastructure is so poor. I'd like to think money could help a bit, but you're right in that it probably wouldn't be enough.

I look at India a bit like the US was 20 years ago, in terms of infrastructure and world ranking. The comparison isn't totally apt though, as soccer in India, from what I know, is reasonably popular. Even in the US today, soccer is maybe the third most popular team sport, and maybe fifth overall. The national team picked up and got back to the World Cup once the right people got into managing the sport and once we were able to send players to Europe as well. The team got even stronger once a solid domestic league was established. The quality of players and the league in India need to grow in much the same way. At the same time, the league here would not have succeeded without the proper financial backers.

I guess I'm saying that the ideal for India is that money is spent on improving the infrastructure, and the improved infrastructure in turn generates more revenue by fielding a more successful team that the people can be proud of.

There are teams though that lack even that and manage to at least crack the top 100 though, if not get higher. Partially its going to be a matter of convincing the best athletes that its a viable career.

 

Re: Chances of india (SOUTH ASIAN CHAMPIONS)

you have to be the most interesting person ive come across on bigsoccer!

what is it you do at work, exactly? id love to know more! that is an excellent post and i am genuinely intrigued by a girl who has such a vested interest in sport in india (and not cricket, but football!) that she misses work to watch a qualifier!!!
please dont take this the wrong way - its an absolute credit to you and a compliment to your spirit and dedication...
plus, you speak german!
you might actually be the first manu fan that i like!

how did you get into sport and particularly football so much?




also,
whats your phone number and where do you live?

 

This is not really related to Indian football in particular, but I'll post it nevertheless.

I do not see any necessary corelation in corporate sponsorship of a club/country and its sucess. Nor is the corelation valid between infrastructure and sucess. Look at the countries whom we can call sucessful now- Brazil. When they started, they were the poorest of the South American nations, with minimum infrastructure. Many of their previous players had to work after hours to earn the bare minimum income. It was only after they became sucessful, and recognised that the sponsorship started. Same with Germany. They won the 1954 world cup, when their country hadn't even ressurected itself from the ruin of the second world war. No one was sponsoring them, back then. Same can be said of the Argentinian world cup win in the 70's which was the era of quasi socialist rule and unstability in South America. All these great footballing nations started off only with pure grit, determination and talent. None of those mentioned above had any sponsors or infrastructure facilities to boast of. the sponsors and the media came begging after them only AFTER they had established themselves.
Sponsorship of a team, only eases the financial burden the team has face. In no way does sponsorship actually increase the standard of a team. All the sponsors want is a bit of advertising and they get their returns when millions of youngsters buy the 'star player' endorsed product. the team on its part gets financial aid and the necessary media attention. It is a symbiotic relationship, where each side just looks at his short term gains. That is, neither do the sponsors care what happens to the team (obviously they wouldnt be happy with a 6-0 loss, as it would show on their product in a negative way. But a 2-0 loss the sponsors wouldnt mind), nor does the team care if the sponsors get their returns by selling merchandise.
Infrastructure makes a difference, in my opinion, but only to a certain extent. Look at the Saudi's. They have excellent infrastructure, but their results on the world stage have been embarassing. teams with much weaker infrastructure, like Nigeria, Cameroon, Iran etc have performed better on the world stage.

Another main point, which many people overlook is government support. I would rate that as much more important than infrastructure or sponsorship. The USSR, was a strong sporting nation, because of the Soviet authorities extra efforts to show of the Soviet athletes/teams as some sorts of ' better sportsmen from better society' ( I dont remeber the exact phrase, i've forgotten it, i had learnt it in college though ). Their aim was to show that a 'workers paradise' produces better athletes than the capitalist west. China too has a similar policy towards sports. Their performance in the 2004 olympics made it quite evident. Australian governemnt too takes an active role in betterment of sports in the country. If India can get the necessary government help, without unnecessary government interference, then things would suddenly start looking rosy.

Any takers?

PS: Why are people so suprised by Indians liking football??? Take a look at the college crowd outside Bandra station and you'll see that more youngsters wear Brazil and Chelsea jerseys than Lee or Lacoste t shirts.

 

I forgot to mention:

Since we have so many regular Indian football fans posting here, maybe we should request the bigsoccer administration to give Indian football a section of its own- like they've done for Saudi, Japan and China. Maybe that would help us get more supporters. Sahbekham,Chandu or Scorpio81, who are the 'older' members can moderate it for us.

Just a suggestion.

 

South Asian champs? That's kind of like winning a division in baseball while being 30 games below .500 . All kidding aside, I hope India one of these days can make an Asian Cup. From what I saw in the Japan-India highlights though, they've got a long way to go.

 

It was a good game for Japan without our keeper Nandy in good form it would be 10-0plus! On the positive side well we know that we held Japan to 0-2 until the last 15 minutes and we tried hard but it still is not good enough.

Poorvi, Bhutia did not have any impact but I read somewhere India had 2 shots at goal and Bhutia took them. Also in the game the midfield was not existing they were defending so who supplies Bhutia? He is not in the class of the Japan strikers but he is the best Indian striker.

On the negative Im tired of hearing the AIFF complaining they need money to raise the standard they are getting million $$ plus from FIFA but where does the money go? the AIFF is run by politicians and politicians in India are the most corrupt! Instead of saying that we are not good enough why not ask the Japan football association how to become like them also? We need to lose like this to have a change

 

Imagine just 5% of Indian population starts to play football.... now thats scary.... for me.. im glad most Indians are into cricket not football cuz their population will be a big factor for their improvement

Good job India keep fighting your way up!