By the time you read this, Brazil would have already played its first match against Croatia. After four years, it’s World Cup time once again. Soccer fever has been gripping the world like never before as the month-long tournament kicked off on Wednesday night.
Thirty-two countries would be parading their prodigious football talent on the biggest stage with big names like Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Uruguay, England, Portugal and Ghana are tipped to do well. As the event unfolds, it will turn into the most glittering sporting extravaganza as football holds global attraction.
In the previous FIFA World Cup held in South Africa exactly four years ago, an estimated 700 million people watched the soccer spectacle of which, hold your breath, a whopping 22 per cent were from India.Though football is extremely popular in India -- cricket might have usurped it somewhat in recent years -- the country has never qualified for the World Cup event. India has been Asian champions in the past, in 1962 at Jakarta, but has slid down the standings over the last few decades.
The only official participants from India in this year’s World Cup will be five young boys and a girl, all trying their hand at football, who have been invited to be part of the opening ceremony.
Kolkata used to be the Mecca of football in India for a long time as the city clubs like Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting ruled the roost. The country boasted of fine players like Sailen Manna, PK Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Tulsidas Balaram, Peter Thangaraj, Arun Ghosh, P Kannan, Mohammed Yousuf Khan, Jarnail Singh and Mohammed Habib in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.
In the past, any encounter between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal was viewed as a potential India-Pakistan hockey tie as far as buildup and spectator interest was concerned. But every time an Indian team flew out of the country to play a major tournament, be it the Asian Games or the Merdeka Cup in Kuala lumpur, these highly valued players came a cropper. Except for the Asian victory in 1962 when India beat South Korea 2-1 in the final after having lost to the same opponent 0-2 in the league stage.
The best that India has achieved since then was its bronze medal winning performance in the 1970 Asiad in Bangkok when they beat Japan 1-0 in the match between losing semifinalists with Manjit Singh scoring the winning goal.Spectator interest in the domestic matches started dwindling once the World Cup soccer was beamed into our living rooms through television in 1982. The level of skill and artistry seen on the screen had such an impact on the soccer buffs that the performance of the big names in the domestic circuit paled in comparison.
Interest in the traditional Mohun Bagan-East Bengal duels then started to dip. An I-league is being organised for a few years now with Indian players brushing shoulders with players from other countries who are playing for various teams. But it has not enabled us to unearth much talent till now.
Till the late 1970s, it was Bengal football which stamped its authority in the country’s soccer arena. There was a time when the entire national football team, beginning from the goalkeeper to the left winger, comprised players from the Kolkata Maidan, most of them being Bengalis though there were outstation players as well.
The trend reversed in the 1980s with Punjab, Goa and Kerala venturing to stop the Bengal monopoly in the Santosh Trophy, the national football championship, to some extent. Players from Punjab and Goa then found place in the Indian team fighting back competition from Kolkata. In recent years, it is the North-East which has been churning out players of exceptional caliber to don the national colors. Very few Bengalis now find their names on the Indian team sheet.
But whatever the AIFF has done so far has not paid off as India has been known to lose to teams like Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives.
We may have supplied a huge slice of the World Cup watchers which may even increase this time, but it hurts to think that we do not have a stake in the soccer carnival. The only pleasure we get is to watch soccer artistes like Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo. This year it will be no different though restaurants, clubs and other places of recreation come up with innovative ideas to make money during the World Cup.
It is not known when India can dream of qualifying for the World Cup football. Our performance in the World Cup hockey this week has been disastrous, virtually dishing out the same kind of fare as we have been producing since 1980. It is difficult to make the present generation believe that India once ruled the world of hockey with no competitor.
Despite cricket occupying the centre-stage, it is football which appeals to the people in India. Apparently, nobody knows how to fix the apparatus that holds the key to India’s football future.
(The writer is a senior journalist now based in Bhubaneswar)