FOOTBALL IN DETAIL

The newspaper industry in India is one of the important contributing industries in the Indian Economy. With around 250 million daily circulation, it's reach among the masses is splendid and undeniable. Imagine, how far it spread the information and how strong the impact on the society. From students, working individuals, retired, homemakers,poor, rich somehow everyone have connection with the newspaper. They read regularly and know about the daily happenings. But, why Indian football is not included in this information? I always thought, why so much discrimination is faced by the Indian football over the other sports. As you all know that yesterday, Indian football federation released the names of 23 women's national team players for the AFC Asian Cup. Many Indian newspapers with high readership and which are published in different languages, zones and cities failed to even mention that. Shocking, isn't it ? This condition is after the competition is...

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...

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...