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The referees, mistakes and the abuses !I

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It's quite evident that refreeing is not an easy job, you have to be on toes to be at best. Sometimes they do make mistakes and rightly so, should be criticised. But, there is no room for abuse, dedicated targeting and insult. Mistakes did happened in the past will be there in the future too, as it's the human nature and mistakes do happen. There might also be a lot of anger when you suffer from the wrong decisions, but it never gives you a right to abuse someone without even respecting their privacy. Jamshedpur FC got a clear goal denied last season but their fans didn't went to abuse the refree and his family. Their criticism was meant for the AIFF so they do something regarding it. In India, refrees earn very much less and have to sustain their livelihood by doing other jobs. Till the league becomes stronger so that they can earn enough and participate in more matches, they won't improve. Also, many people advocate introduction of the VAR system in the In...

The competitiveness of the ISL !

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Indian Super League, as it's history is putting out surprises yet again. Where favourite teams are getting beaten comfortably, coaches are resigning mid season, change of teams by the coaching staff and especially the ever changing points table. Every league certainly amounts to the points table as, it shares the details of it's process and an idea how teams are performing. But, in a league with only 11 teams and only round robin matches, the margin between the top and the bottom is a two wins away. This shows the competitiveness of the league. Every team wants to get more out of it and win the league shield with the lottery jackpot, the champions league spot. Though, as usual this season started normally till the refree controversies, trolling of the fan favourites and successive defeats for the large spenders. With ATKMB , struggling enough to make the most successful coach in the league to resign from the spot. And it made many wonders how the season will progre...

AFC qualifiers told us that there is no use of mathematics in front of the fate !

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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...

Stimac does it again !

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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...

Asian Cup 2023 qualification is more difficult now !

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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...

When 3+1 is not equal to 4 !

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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...

SAFF CHAMPIONSHIP WIN AND BEYOND

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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...