After days of uncertainty, the Indian football team for the Asian Games is finally out. And Sunil Chhetri, India’s greatest star, is the one who will lead the young team to China.
Is this India’s best team possible? NO.
Is the situation ideal? NO.
Can the team be competitive- YES.
With the club versus country debate raging and other unnecessary controversies taking up a lot of newsprint, it wasn’t easy for the stakeholders involved. The Asian Games is not part of the FIFA window and hence the clubs are within their rights not to release key players. It took much convincing from the AIFF to form the team and finally there is a resolution.
The chronology of events of the last few days is pretty clear. The Press Trust of India (PTI) published a story about the Indian football team and astrological consultations on June 21, 2022. The Times of India (TOI) had a more detailed copy two days later which suggested that the All India Football Federation (AIFF) needed a forensic audit to discover the money trail. The TOI copy mentioned that Igor Stimac had probably been aware of what happened.
This is an old story, first brought into the public domain nearly 15 months ago. Why, then, has it been resurrected now? What purpose does it serve, when the AIFF dispensation has changed and the national team has made remarkable strides in the intervening period? Is it really in the interests of Indian football to flog a very dead horse?
Let’s get one thing very clear at the outset. While not defending anyone, it is true that sportspersons tend to be superstitious creatures. Even the elite performers usually have a pre-game ritual. Left sock rolled down, kissing a lucky amulet or making sure the right foot touches the field of play first. During his reign as England football coach between 1996 and 1999, Glenn Hoddle had Eileen Drewery, a faith healer, come and treat his players. The first time she put her hands on the head of Ray Parlour, the Arsenal midfielder, he quipped: “I’ll have a short back and sides [haircut], please!”
No one is giving Stimac a free pass here. But that was a very different time, with both the team and coach at a low ebb and in desperate need of results. The administration was also an utter mess, leaving the players and staff to try and navigate their own path to safety.
Also Read: AIFF Announces Men’s Squad for Asian Games in Hangzhou.
If Stimac is still consulting the astrologer before India games, then it’s a real issue. But nothing in the ‘expose’ carried by a national newspaper suggests that this is the case. The story only rehashes what was said in June 2022, with a few extra details thrown in. The AIFF is no longer paying anyone for consultations based on planetary alignments. Stimac is no longer sharing team details. The story, 16 months old, is irrelevant.
The Indian team has won three trophies in the last few months. Not one of them counts as major silverware, but compared to where the squad was 15 months ago, there has been undeniable progress – so much so that the Government of India’s sports ministry felt compelled to grant the team exemption from the eligibility rules so that they could take part in the Asian Games later this month.
That really is at the heart of the matter. The Asian Games tournament may once have been a centre piece of football on the continent, but in these days of national leagues and FIFA windows, it’s rated as low priority. It’s also an Under-23 event with just three over-age players allowed in the squad.
But these are exceptional times for Indian football. There is an Asian Cup in Qatar in January. Before that, during the next FIFA window, matches against Kuwait and Qatar hold the key to India’s qualification hopes for the World Cup in 2026. Most national teams make do with having access to the players only during the designated windows. That’s fine when your squad is gifted enough to have individuals playing for Bayern Munich (South Korea’s Kim Min-jae) and Liverpool (Japan’s Wataru Endo). India are decades behind those teams in terms of development. Just to compete with them would need every little thing to align on the day.
The club-versus-country debate is as old as football itself. In this case, the organisers of the Indian Super League (ISL) and the AIFF needed to get together to find a formula. And from the team announced, it is evident they tried. Between them and the AIFF, the schedule has to be drawn up in such a way that the national team has the best possible chance of upsetting the odds in November and January. That is ‘national interest’, not hatchet jobs in newspapers about a story more than a year old.
On the back of the recent successes, Stimac has become something of a cult figure. And like many Balkan mavericks before him, he doesn’t mince his words. That has made him enemies, those who are just waiting for him and the team to trip up. They did so at the recent King’s Cup in Thailand, losing to Lebanon in the third-place game after pushing Iraq to the limit in the semifinal.
It’s also a measure of how far Indian football has come that some of the criticism is so bizarre. If you trawl social media, you’ll find hundreds of posts criticising the ‘pragmatic’ style of play. Clearly, some of these individuals think India have Toni Kroos and Luka Modric in midfield, setting up umpteen chances for some Erling Haaland-like figure to finish.
India’s main striker, Sunil Chhetri, turned 39 last month. Not a single one of the players in the squad is good enough to play in a leading league in Asia, forget Europe. That’s what is the reality. Pragmatism is no dirty word either. Consider Jurgen Klopp, one of the three best coaches in the world right now. Long before he became an iconic figure with Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool, Klopp cut his managerial teeth at FSV Mainz 05 in the Bundesliga.
Did Mainz play tiki taka and average 70 percent possession each game? No. They scrapped like dogs and ran themselves into the ground each game so that they could compete against sides with far greater resources. Without defensive solidity and structure – which Stimac is trying to provide– such teams don’t have a chance.
So was the controversy really about the national team, or was it about cutting Stimac down to size? And if the smear campaign did succeed, where does that leave Indian football? The AIFF needed to take a stand and they did. Neither the President nor the Secretary General said a word on the unnecessary controversy. They did not feel the need to react to a story 16 months old. Rather, they were trying to find a solution to the club v country debate, which wasn’t easy. They knew that this window of opportunity may not come again – no matter what the stars say.
And while they haven’t managed to get the best 22 listed for the Asian Games, it was never really possible with the start of the ISL round the corner. But what is on show here is intent. The AIFF management and FSDL were both keen to seek a solution. By standing by Stimac and trying to get the best possible team to China, they have shown intent. And in a situation, which isn’t ideal, intent is the only ray of hope we can live by.
The team, which has been announced does not mention Stimac as Head Coach. But from what we hear, he is the one to travel to China to lead the young boys to punch above their weight. With Sunil on the pitch, he has his best ally with him. While few will hold him accountable for results in a situation such as this, we continue to live in hope that our football will soon turn the corner.
Here is Sunil Chhetri on India’s Asian Games participation. (He had spoken to Revsportz on the issue when the Asian Games draw was announced).
Sunil Chhetri- “It is a great opportunity for all of us and you need to play with the better teams to improve. We are playing China, which is a very good team and one of the top 10 teams of Asia. The other two teams in our group, Bangladesh and Myanmar, are teams we have played with very often and it should be a good tournament. There is a lot of momentum and unless you play more and more games with better opposition, you will not improve. Playing China will be good exposure for the boys for sure.”
(The Revsportz Football bureau has also contributed to this story).