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...

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...