Fwd: Dismal Condition of Indian Football
anshul jain
From: anshul jain <ism.a...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 5:34 PM
Subject: Dismal Condition of Indian Football
To: my-shaurya <my-sh...@googlegroups.com>
The only alternative we can watch is Cricket
Read the following articleNo messiah for Indian football, but at least there’s Messi
There is no news in Kolkata these days except Messi-spotting. The problem is the Argentine football superstar says next to nothing.
So after 600 words in a front page story we only learn that Lionel Messi smiled as the elevator doors closed.
The real story is happening outside. Outside the plush hotel where Messi and team are ensconced. Outside the Yuba Bharati Krirangan where Argentina and Venezuela will play in front of thousands of football crazy fans this evening.
That’s where you’ll find the real diehard fans. Like Barun Biswas, an Apollo Clinics employee who says he’s actually just waiting for a bus. But he’s wearing Argentina’s blue and white colours. “Just in case I see them,” he smiles. Or twelve-year old Biswajit Gayen and his friends who have been hanging out outside the Hyatt since early morning. “No bathing, no eating, nothing,” he says. “Some uncle gave us a Thums Up.” Or Sabuj Sarkar who’s propped up a homemade poster of Messi on his bicycle. It reads “Argentina and Venezuela are great. We are sorry. Play, India, play.”
“Our team Mohun Bagan defeated the British in 1911 but now we cannot even qualify for the World Cup even though we are such a big country,” says Sarkar. There are more football fans in West Bengal alone than the entire population of Argentina.
In a way the madness about Lionel Messi is also a story about the failure of Indian football.
“If Argentina had played India that would have been such a great gain for us,” says a teenager standing outside the hotel.
“Oh are you crazy?” scoffs the man standing next to him. “We would have needed twenty players on the field just to keep up.”
In fact, when Pele had come to Kolkata in 1977, he had played against Mohun Bagan at Eden Gardens.
“There definitely was that Mohun Bagan spirit then,” admits Utpal Ganguly, the general secretary of the Indian Football Association. “But there is a different excitement about seeing two high profile teams. I don’t think Argentina would have come all the way here to play India.”
Slideshow on the Messi fever in Kolkata“This 90-minute match won’t improve the standard of Indian football,” he says. “We have the passion. But we need to get our act together.” He wants to start an IPL-like football league in West Bengal next year.
What has also changed since the Pele days are the viewers. Back in those days, Kolkata football was all about its two arch-rival teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. As a Kolkatan you had to peg your identity to one or the other. When the two teams clashed, life came to a standstill. The price of hilsa went up if East Bengal won. The price of prawns shot up if Mohun Bagan prevailed. Football agnostics, like my family, just happily ate the losing side’s fish.
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Anshul Jain
Regional Coordinator,Eastern Zone
Ranchi (Jharkhand), India
Ph: 0651-6522632 (O)
Cell: 099391 67396
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Anshul Jain
Regional Coordinator,Eastern Zone
Ranchi (Jharkhand), India
Ph: 0651-6522632 (O)
Cell: 099391 67396
