FOOTBALL IN DETAIL

We do see often, people saying that mathematics is very useful. It certainly do play an important in our lives but it's useless in front of the fate. This happened last night with the U 23 Indian National Football team, as we failed to progress for the main tournament. We had 4 points but as the result against the 4th placed team is not considered, we got a point only, collectively. It is weird that we finished 2nd in the group but on collective points gained we are last as Oman have 3, Kyrgyzstan have 4, yet they are not above us. This is funny and very weird too, it does gives an impression of vague qualification rules, improper distribution of the teams and advantage to the few teams. The rule gave an advantage to the top placed teams in every group as they got every point and on the other hand  it nullified the points for the second placed teams in the group. In case of the Kyrgyzstan, the result was more heartbreaking because they were let down in the p...

India should have started the match with a lot of confidence in them but it was the coach who was poor in the confidence, not the players. The starting formation was 4-1-4-1,  formation made it difficult for the players to adapt. It was quite visible from the 1st minute of the match, as Rahim was left alone often. Vikram had to cover a lot of the space and it was tiring with their defence in command. No chance of crossing, made it difficult for us, on occasions there was some space otherwise, the tactics completely failed. Still it was not looking poor and we were in command of the game, until the substitution of Vikram and the start if the defensive mode. They were attacking well before too hut this substitution relieved their defence from the threat of quick counter. This changed the whole game, attacks were made from the UAE side and it made Stimac to go further wrong z as he substituted a defensive midfielder for the defender. Don't raise the eyebrows, we have see t...

While we were waiting for the draw to happen this month itself but there is another shocking news. Now, AFC has decided to make the 3rd round Asian Cup qualifiers, a single-legged affair on a centralized venue. This is very complicated for everyone involved. Every fixture is a do or dies now, every point lost will thin further, the chances of qualifying for the big tournament. It will now be played in June, next year and the draw will happen according to the latest rankings in February 2022.  This is making the whole process problematic for us as due to our league structure and its scheduling, we are unlikely to use any international window till the end of the season in march 2022. It will jeopardize our chances to remain in the pot 1, as other teams may get ahead of us. This can only be reduced by playing in February window to gain enough points to stay afloat. Fifa rankings are important in this aspect as the draw will happen on  the basis of that, with teams closer to us in...

Sometimes we find the basic rules of mathematics beyond reasonable. This happens only during  unique cases. One such case is related to the "3+1" rule associated with  Asian football. Every Indian football club has been part of this bogie but differed on other platforms.   One such platform is the league system, here the rule was different and created a paralysis for the growth of  Indian football but was pleasant to the eyes. Whenever our teams went for the international glory, they failed to shine even with the brightest stars. It was quite visible that the layers of the coat which was sufficient for the 10° atmosphere failed to shield on days with negative temperatures. Our players jammed in the cold of the other team's quality and the heat of the pressure along with expectations. Bengaluru football club did fight to break the ice but it was not enough to melt the hard structure of superiority. We can see that after 2016, our clubs have per...

It all started with a draw against 10 men Bangladesh to bring us back to the regret lane. Then the draw against 205 ranked Sri Lanka made us cry but after that it looks like that we are getting our pieces back. The win against Nepal, then home side Maldives propelled us to fight for the trophy in the final. It rained and first difficult half went evenly poised. We feared that it might be the indication for the worse to come. But it never was the case until Sunil is on the pitch and his head is in sync with the winning approach, we are sorted ! As we put 2 past the Nepali defence in two quick succession, half of the work was already done. Though Nepal did tried to harm with few takes at the goal post, but it was not their day. We comfortably won the championship with 3-0 in the final. Most of the trophies went to our captain, Sunil Chhetri. The celebrations started to happen with young guns feeling the success, the build of the trophy and what they ought to do to be at their...

One will wonder that a country like India often struggles to make an impact in the game of football. Even with a rich history in this game and commendable success till 90s we were never able to do something memorable even at the continental stage we are minions. The most prestigious tournament in asia,  "Asian cup" is beyond our reach on successive terms. We failed to qualify for it on many occasions, barring one opportunity where we finished as runners up in the year 1964. Apart from that there is not much to talk about at the international level. Our league structure was not good as often we changed the course of it to garner support and investment. Even after the emergence of ISL in 2015 we haven't achieved the success, everyone wished for. But, as their is darkness all around, there is one star which is always more bright at the peak. That star here is our "Captain, Leader, Legend", Sunil Chhetri ! Born to the football loving parents, he is gracing present g...

The perception is  far from the reality. It does make us perplexed often and get into the wrong side of the judgment. This happened with the football fans in India, particularly when it came to the  national team. The perception of not having enough numbers to play good football and score was wrong. The reality is very different from it and with the stats, we can see it. It all started initially with coming back of Stephen Constantine as the head coach and with our team struggling to get past weaker teams we hoped for someone "dynamic".                     Stephen Constantine This made us hate him from the start as the world cup qualifiers were very bad and we couldn't perform better with the all experienced players. As I said, sometimes it's the time which only shows us the correct picture, you may agree that "this is the time to pull up the curtains" to see that. With Stephan leaving the Indian national team after...