It was a slow and painful death. Yes, Indian men’s football is dead. The Ashes can be flown into the Arabian Sea. As a follower, it was agonising. 11 corners and nothing. No ideas, no innovation and pathetic defending. The Lallianzuala Chhangte strike was fantastic and thereafter it was all downhill.
To imagine Anwar Ali and Rahul Bheke are the best we have. To imagine we need Sunil Chhetri who is a pale shadow of what he was. This is a team with no future. No Khalid Jamil or for that matter any coach can do a thing.
Let’s all be happy with the ISL. Each club will field second-rate foreigners as strikers who are going to destroy Indian strikers forever. In the absence of good Indian centre forwards, this is what we will get. We don’t have Indian strikers in our ISL clubs and in such a scenario this is what we get. Six Indian players in the box and no one shoots. Set-pieces don’t even exist and it was just a deeply frustrating show from start to finish except the brilliance from Chhangte.
India made every possible change allowed and yet, nothing happened. The 159th ranked Singapore come to India and beat us. Face the reality. We are rank-bad. Poor is an understatement. Indian football has hit rock bottom.
Let’s make a radical overhaul. Play the U-23 team and give them some exposure. We don’t need players who are past their prime and who don’t have the game anymore. And now that the Federation owns the ISL, make it mandatory for clubs to play an Indian striker. There is no need for a league which doesn’t enrich national football. It serves no purpose in the end and all the glamour is of no use really.
The hard truth is that the Federation needs to act. If that means the ISL loses sheen so be it. We need footballers to emerge. Not some rubbish foreign star to come and make crores at our expense. Each club owner should realise there is something greater than ego. If they want to help Indian football, they should eschew their ego and play Indian footballers as strikers.
For now, this is hard to digest. And this rant needs to stop. For I am angry and frustrated, like many millions are.
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