Kudos to the Indian football team

I have to admit. Yesterday was the first time I saw an Indian football team play an international match. The inexperienced team, which is ranked 144th in the world, put up a good fight against Australia, the number 26 team in the world. The Aussies, who played in the 2010 World Cup, overpowered India and could have won by a bigger margin, if it weren't for Subrata Paul, the wonderful goalkeeper who plays for Pune FC.

Paul can showcase his skills to an international audience by playing well against Bahrain and South Korea. India (in my opinion) have a decent shot at beating Bahrain on Jan 14. The very fact that India qualified for this tournament was an achievement. There has long been talk about major reforms in Indian football. This is the same country that was 20 minutes away from reaching the final in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the same nation that reached an Asia Cup Final in Tel Aviv in the 1960s losing to the hosts (who at that time played under the Asian Federation). India also won a gold at the Jakarta Asian Games.

But over the last 40 years, corrupt politicians ruined the state of Indian football. One Priyaranjan Das Munshi controlled the federation for years and was in many responsible for the decline of the sport in India. This is 2011 and I see more kids playing football on the beach than cricket. There is a craze for European football leagues across India. This is the perfect time to reform Indian football and aim for a World Cup qualification in 2022.

If the best talent can be honed from now, India may just appear on the grand stage in Qatar in 11 years.

The Australian team was gracious in victory yesterday and here is a link to some of their comments.
http://www.rediff.com/sports/report/qatar-asian-cup-2011-despite-loss-indians-earn-respect-from-aussies/20110111.htm