Thursday, August 5, 2010

Why India doesn't play the Football World Cup


Every four years, the question keeps bobbing up. "Why doesn't India play the Football World Cup?". After all we are a country of more than a billion. I've heard several explanations - lack of facilities, poor administration, short stature of players and so on. The one explanation I found most interesting was proposed by a German friend. 

He was in India for a few months during which he had the opportunity to play with some Indian football freaks. "Many of them have great skills", he observed. "The problem is that they simply do not shoot. They just want to dribble till they can literally place the ball inside the goal". Reason? Most Indians play with bare goal-posts; there's no net behind the posts. If they shoot, they have to go fetch the ball from as far as it managed to reach behind the goal-line.  Over years, the dribbling habit becomes inveterate in players. 

Solution: Put nets behind all goal posts. Make them shoot!

8 comments:

  1. Oh, like, really? DUDE... they have to go fetch the ball from as far as it managed to reach behind the goal-line. - This, for sure, cannot be the only reason for it. Your German friend certainly has a point, but it can only be related to the players at the school level, or just above.

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  2. Ha ha ...... hey, nice point mate! :-)

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  3. @ Arjit Srivastava
    Thanks for reading. You are absolutely right. It can't be as simple as that. Nonetheless it was an interesting observation which I thought was worth sharing.

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  4. @ indisch
    Thank you. Honored to have this posted on your blog :-)

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  5. another better solution...which we used to do in home....make walls as goal post..

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  6. @ omus
    A wall might not be safe for the goalie, especially when he's diving around!

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  7. Great observation by the German. I played a lot of football in the evenings after school and on weekends in our neighborhood grounds and that is exactly the mentality. But of course, it is not the only reason but it is one for sure. We also don't push ourselves harder or be too aggressive. Try to play safe a bit too much. Maybe because then you would have to go to the hospital if you're hurt and we all know what that means in India. So no one wants to risk getting hurt badly either. Another reason for you.

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  8. Nice point though. But I kno there's more to that. Thanks anyway

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