Vinayak Padmadeo
The All India Football Federation’s newly-elected officials, including president Kalyan Chaubey and secretary general Shaji Prabhakaran, have taken the customary flight to Qatar to attend the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup. As a FIFA affiliate country, which has hosted two U-17 World Cups, India’s seat amongst the elite nations in the ceremony is a given.
However, that is not the case with the country’s football team, which has never participated at a World Cup. In fact, the country’s record in the qualifiers is abysmal — India have only won nine of their 48 matches.
As the latest edition kicks off tomorrow, the question remains: when will the Blue Tigers play in the World Cup?
“Teams such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Korea, Iran and Uzbekistan are all better than us. That is where we aspire to go,” India captain Sunil Chhetri said.
“It is going to be very difficult but that’s my target. But before thinking about the World Cup I am thinking of getting into the top 10-12 in Asia and then staying there,” he added.
“We keep playing them and we will know what the difference is (between them and us) and then you guys won’t come up to me and ask when we will qualify for the World Cup. When you see us playing Japan and South Korea every three months then you will see the difference,” he added.
Prabhakaran seems to agree with Chhetri. “We do not have a structure. We have not unearthed talent like Sunil Chhetri in years. It is because players come into the fold accidentally. It is not by design,” Prabhakaran said from Doha.
“The world over, it is the clubs that make elite players through the youth setups. In India, the clubs do not have the money to support grassroots or the youth level. A lot needs to be done to address this issue,” he added.
The new AIFF team is busy finalising a blueprint, which will address all the ills that have shaped Indian football in the last few decades, Prabhakaran said.
“Right now, we have 10 thousand licensed coaches in the country. We want it to reach over one lakh. More coaches will mean more players. We select an Indian team from a pool of 25-30 players. It has to reach thousands. These are a few things we are looking at,” he said.
New openings
In the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, there will be three additional spots from the Asian region added to the main draw. Currently, only five teams from Asia can qualify. While it gives India hope, there is no guarantee of qualification.
Teams such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, Iran and reigning Asian champions Qatar are technically much superior to India. The real competition will come from China and Vietnam, who have developed well over the years. “It has to be a long-term plan. You cannot aspire to beat countries like Japan with a four-year plan. It took them well over two decades to make their team competitive. Youth setup is the way forward,” said a former AIFF official who wished to stay anonymous.
Progression
Former India U-20 coach Shanmugam Venkatesh said the youth teams had shown progress in the last few years.
“We won the SAFF Cup in Odisha after beating Bangladesh 5-2 but during the Asian qualifiers we felt that there was a big gulf in intensity while playing Nepal, Maldives as opposed to playing Australia,” Venkatesh, who is an assistant coach at East Bengal, said.
“We lost 2-4 against Iraq and although we lost 1-4 against Australia we only trailed by one goal till the 85th minute. We missed chances against them. We beat Kuwait in their own country, which is progress. We were comfortable playing against the big sides,” he added.
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