FOOTBALL IN DETAIL

The name of Stephan Constantine is not new for the Indian football fans. He was the manager of the senior men's team, from 2002-2005 and then 2015-19. Having held the term for good number of years, he saw the Indian football system transition from one system to another. For example, NFL to the I LEAGUE, then I LEAGUE TO ISL. A lot have changed in with the emergence of ISL, certainly the players have better facilities and better wages. What makes him Ideal for the job? 1. Experience. His experience separates him from the rest, having part of each continental teams. He is aware of different sets of systems, from Europe to Africa, he was part of many leagues, teams. He is aware of the challenges and the the ways of overcoming them is known to him. Being the FIFA coach instructor himself, he is very well known to the methods of delivering the progress. The awareness of Indian football, gives him an advantage too. 2. Know the problems Indian football faces. We often accused ...

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...

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...