Anurag Thakur, the Union Sports Minister, announced that the Indian football team would be going to the Asian Games on July 26, a full seven weeks before the squad flew to China. And yet, the team landed in Hangzhou just 18 hours before their first match against the hosts and checked into their hotel rooms only 15 hours before kick-off.
No international team could have performed in such a situation. To add to that, India did not have the full complement of 22 players. The bench was half-empty, and five of those selected in the squad did not travel with the team. Everything that could go wrong for Indian football did in the days leading up to the game.
And yet, the players fought. Much against anyone’s expectations, they outran the Chinese in the first half, and just on the stroke of half time, equalised through a fantastic Rahul KP strike. While some believed that India could be competitive in the second half as well, it wasn’t to be. The team ran out of gas and half the team were suffering with serious cramps by the 70th minute. China, buoyed by the presence of thousands of home fans, were all over India and the end result was a disappointing 5-1 loss for the Blue Tigers.
For once, not even a finger should be pointed at the players or the coach. They were heroic. Many wouldn’t even have taken field, leave alone fight. India did, and that’s what gives us hope ahead of the second game. A win against Bangladesh, and India will start to believe that they can make it to the next round even with a depleted team.
Because it’s largely an Under-23 tournament, the Asian Games doesn’t impact India’s FIFA ranking. It also doesn’t fall inside any of the accepted FIFA windows, so clubs are not obliged to release players for the squad. But here’s the thing. The government and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) bent the eligibility rules to allow the football team to participate. India are nowhere close to being among the top eight in Asia, but the recent upturn in results, which took the FIFA ranking up to 99, encouraged the government to relax the criteria. Once they did, it was a given that they expected a strong squad to be sent to China, one that would showcase the recent progress made by Indian football. With the games delayed by a year, it’s now effectively an Under-24 competition, with three overage players allowed. Given how many of the regular national-team starters are below 24, a fairly formidable side could have been sent to China. Instead, Stimac went into the first game with two recognized defenders. When the Chinese made four substitutions in the second half, India did not have more than a goalkeeper left on the bench to send on!
Are the clubs to blame?
The Indian Super League (ISL) clubs are convenient villains here, for not releasing players in the ‘national interest’. But it’s the clubs who pay their salaries, and they have every right to expect certain things. Had an Asian Games squad been formalized well in advance, then the players not part of it could have flown straight back from Thailand after the King’s Cup, and those playing in China could have stayed on and got a few valuable practice sessions. The ISL clubs don’t just have the league to worry about. Several are part of Asian club competitions – Mumbai City FC played and lost to Iranian opponents on Monday night – and you cannot expect them to sacrifice such valuable experience.
In England’s Premier League, Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, was raging about a 12:30 lunch-time kick-off last Saturday, after several of his players had returned from international duty only in the early hours of Thursday.
In India’s case, the players entered their rooms at 2am in the early hours of Tuesday morning, after a marathon journey and an 11-hour layover at Singapore Airport. They played at 7:30pm on Tuesday evening. In such stifling heat and humidity, you were playing Russian Roulette with their health. That is simply unacceptable.
The Bangladesh match
This brings me to the game against Bangladesh. India have not lost against their neighbours since January 2003. For many, this is the game that could decide the campaign. Bangladesh know they have India in a corner. They have sent their best team, and realise they have a chance. That’s where Stimac will have to be at his best. Make the tactical changes keeping the injuries in mind, and expect his boys to stand up and dig deep. “In sport, you can motivate your boys for a special effort on one of the days.,” Stimac had said to me after the titanic 2-2 draw and penalty shootout defeat against Iraq in Chiang Mai. “Such things don’t happen every day.” Tomorrow, however, must be such a day if he and India are to salvage the Asian Games campaign.
Fans are outraged by what has happened. They felt the pain when Stimac mentioned that this is India’s C or D team. Some expressed their disappointment on social media, while others trained their ire at the AIFF officials.
But this is not the time for abuse. While every stakeholder needs to learn multiple lessons from this campaign and work in synergy for the betterment of Indian football, for the moment at least, it is time we stand behind the team. A strong national team will help consolidate a strong club culture and vice versa, and that’s what Indian football needs going forward. But on Thursday, it is all about Bangladesh. A game India cannot lose, being played out in the most extraordinary circumstances.
That’s what brings me to a Sachin Tendulkar story. Ahead of the must-win match against Pakistan at Centurion in the 2003 World Cup, Tendulkar was nursing a bad ankle injury. He needed to strap his ankle every morning and it would take close to 40 minutes. After one of the practice sessions just ahead of the game, he was in the change room thinking about the match on hand. That was when he inadvertently pulled open the bandage. To paraphrase his words – he could feel something red and soft in his hand. It was a chunk of flesh from under his big toe. Sachin had two options before him. The first was to call the physio and pull out of the game. And the second was to put the flesh back under the toe, tape it up and play the match. He opted for the second choice, and scored a match-winning 98 off 75 balls.
Could Sunil Chhetri get his boys to do something similar tomorrow, and make these Asian Games one of the best stories for Indian football? While it would not gloss over the shambolic treatment meted out to the team, it would be quite a statement about how far our football has come, and what it is capable of if treated with empathy and sensitivity.
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