U-17 2017 World Cup in India

[jaydeep]

The last year, AIFF launched a website in collaboration with the Sports Authority of India to find young NRI footballers, with valid Indian passports, they need to uploading their videos in an attempt to catch selectors' eye.

Under this, they have found a potential player for the India U-17 World Cup squad in US-based NRI footballer Namit Deshpande ... He is a central defender.

As per the report,

New Jersey based Namit Deshpande applied through the SAI/AIFF Overseas Scouting Portal like more than 50 other boys with his profile and videos. The scouting team liked what they saw, contacted Namit Deshpande and invited him to Brazil for a trial, where he impressed then coach Nicolai Adam, who was sacked a few weeks later. Now Namit Deshpande showed himself to new coach Luis Norton de Matos in Goa and Namit Deshpande impressed the Portuguese, who invited him to join the team in Portugal to see how the centre-back fits into the scheme of things.

US-based NRI in Indian squad for FIFA U-17 World Cup

[abhishek_bong]

Meanwhile, when we were busy with the matches between some of the richest franchises of India and becoming happy with their corporate fictions, the under U-17 Indian football team have beaten one of the legendary football champions of the world, “Italy” with a handsome score of 2-0.The brave young boys of the Indian football team have risen the Indian flag high on a foreign soil through holding it with their guts. But how many of us are aware of these facts? Certainly a very few, that’s because football is one of the most evicted sports in India by some Indian media and administration. But this is not the case internationally; their football is the most popular sports. Football is even the most competitive sports in the world as a huge bulk of Nations is engaged with this game. “Football is the highest family in the world and only in football; you see this kind of love” Pele once said.

[suresh]

Sorry, they did not beat the Italian national team -- just some local Italian team.

[jaydeep]

Yes, you are right Suresh ... They were some assorted Italian kids for that match.

[abhishek_bong]

The tickets of under -17 are vaguely available and even the branding, advertisement, and promotion happening on that purpose is really just not enough .what I fell?

[jayakris]

The theme song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYzBKOej3p8

The video is fun, but the song is a little "meh" for me.. Okay though.

[jayakris]

A ood interview with the Tournament director Javier Ceppi, on where things stand now.
India warming up to its football revolution with sell-out U17 World Cup

He is probably being too positive, but generally things look fine, as we are a month away.

Ticketing has been good in Mumbai, Kochi and Kolkata, what about the other cities?

Ticketing has picked up on all the venues. Guwahati has almost sold out all the inventory that has been put up for sale. Goa will see a surge once physical ticket sales start next week and in Delhi we have had numbers that have never been seen for an event in the capital that’s more than a month away.

Can you provide us with specific ticketing numbers?

What we can say is that no event in India before has had as many tickets sold as we have with over a month to go to the event. What this tournament has achieved so far has been counterintuitive to the fact that Indians usually buy at last minute. If offered a good product at a reasonable price. People will buy it. Proof of it is that we have already sold all the inventory of tickets for 5 matches of the tournament, which is huge.

Sounding good!

Meanwhile, today's news was that the opening ceremony is cancelled. FIFA says that is not the tradition of world cups. I guess a whole bunch of VIPs wanted to light lamps, and have a party with cricketers and Bollywood celebrities at Government's expense, and FIFA put a stop to that

[jayakris]

Also, people are getting serious about this. The environmental minister got into the act too. Vardhan directs NCR states to contain pollution during FIFA U-17

He doesn't want Delhi to be to look too polluted during the matches.

Here is an article in the Indian Express that the FIFA people are genuinely happy that we have got all the preparations pretty much done on time, nicely
Set for ball dance

Can' wait for that opening match between the kids from the world's largest two democracies - USA vs India, one month from now!!

[jayakris]

The Salt lake stadium in Kolkata is almost done with all the massive remodeling. Take a look at the pictures. "Looks like hotel lobby or a museums" said the FIFA guy Javier Ceppi who has been running the show in India - https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/fi ... ke-stadium

This was not some small re-modeling. Bucket seats all through, which reduced the stadium capacity from 110K+ (I think it has had 120k crowds once for Mohun Bagan - Mohammedans matches) to just 80K now. Using FIFA's counting scheme, the official capacity is now some 66K. That is a football stadium!!! I don't like all the space around the pitch, but that is the case with all big stadiums in India. But this is the best we have, and it is now truly world standard. As are about 5 other venues. Great for India. It was just 5 or 10 years ago when we really did not have any stadium except Amebdeker (that too because of its compactness) where we wanted our National Team to even play. Mumbai finally getting a place where the national team can play after some 4 decades, was the greatest development in Indian football, in my opinion.

Now, can we do anything about Chennai getting their act together? Everybody else is on board.

[jayakris]

Here is a nice blog article with a run-down of how things have gone, but showing some of the less than positive items, though nothing too problematic.
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion ... -world-cup

The video of the argument Javier Ceppi had a few days ago with Ankur Dutta, secretary of Assam Football Association, who said some crazy stuff to the media that Ceppi didn't like. "I am not your employee", and "I am not yours either" ... stuff like that. LOL.

[jayakris]

An article from The Hindu. They made a snake boat figure using the bucket set colors. How about that?

Kerala is about to catch football fever, it seems. Okay, I am exaggerating, but then again this is the place where they had 55K average attendance at the Kochi ISL games last year (which would place them somewhere in the world top-20 in average league game attendance, I believe).

The Kochi metro line opened the stations till 1 km away from the stadium in June, and I believe the stadium station is about to open later this month.

For some humor, here is the celebrity footage of the evergreen Malayali samba striker, "Mammottinho" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAqwNIJkKaU ... Who knew that the Malayali mundu is the best attire to play football in?

[PKBasu]

Great to see the Vivekananda Stadium (at Calcutta's Salt Lake neighbourhood) reach world-class standards (despite clearly being kept ready for track & field events as well as football). The rest areas, toilets, and bucket seats are great to see. Interesting the traditional football powerhouse states of Kerala and West Bengal are almost unrepresented in the Indian squad -- which contains just one player from each of those two states. There are 4 from Mizoram, and two each from Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam and Odisha.

Any chance we might meet at Vivekananda Stadium for the under-17 World Cup final, Jay?

[jayakris]

PKB, I would have loved to be there (in fact, I have never been in Kolkata!).... but I am in Taiwan that week and on my way to Korea that weekend. Oh well.

[prasen9]

Which is perfect. Taiwan - CCU - Seoul. You watch the final and then go over to Seoul for business

[PKBasu]

You forget that Kolkata (CCU) is an urban backwater. Forget about direct flights from Taipei or to Seoul from CCU. Poor Jay will spend the whole weekend flying from Taiwan to Singapore or Bangkok for a connection to Calcutta, and a similar stop-over on the journey back.