AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

[murlikt]

Here is a report:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_ ... 070003.htm
http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php ... _ID=061121

I also think this is a gimmik because these people in the AIFF have done nothing for 20+ years and now they are talking of glory. Why didnt they do a project before? The only ppl who have taken initiative are the team from indianfootball.com they organised the England tours, plus the Germany tour for the u-17 team. They also helped Bhutia sign in England. Amazing how the AIFF have kept their jobs with no result. Don't they feel shame they are letting fans down by doing less than some other good candidates?

One thing for sure is even if only now there is good performance for Indian football us fans all know it has taken 20 years and lots of money wasted from FIFA and still there is no change in administration.

Dasmunshi knows that all the media, fans, are followingthe world cup and asking why India is so low and that is why he talks of 'projects' and 'dreams' its all garbage man he wants his job thats it. Plus Sepp Blatter is coming to India soon so that is why he is acting, otherwise we never hear of him

[goan_star]

Well said murlikt.

Frankly speaking forget 2010-2014, I don't think we could reach world cup even by 3014, the way we are going about at the moment.

AIFF themsleves are not sure about what they are doing. They are not definitive at least about their goals. First they wish to qualify for 2010, if not then 2014, sounds like trial and error method!!
Progress in football will not be achieved by such pipedreams.

We need to have concrete plans and set realistic objectives. Study the other countries which have achieved this objectives. Trinidad and Tobago with a population of 1.3 million could do it, study how they have done it and why we can't. Japan has become a force from nothing, how? just by dreaming?
Find out the reasons and rectify them as to why Indians go crazy over world cup and great teams like Brazil and don't even care for NFL and the Indian football teams.

Lets target first populariziing, professionalizing and making a qulitative improvement at NFL and local leagues. And stop day dreaming.
Talk about at least qualifying for Asian competitons first, before taliking about world cup.

[jayakris]

Scouting, scouting, scouting .. It starts there.

The AIFF should spend the next 3 years if not 5 putting in solid money into setting up the scouting system and get the states and clubs a part of it. They will need to spend a lot on this. Then after 4 years we will talk.

Jay

[goan_star]

“For India to progress in football, we need to find Baichung in every village of India,” pointed out Mr Aiyer.

-- Before proposing such vague ideas, guys like Aiyar, Munsi et al., should ask themselves as to how many football grounds are there in their own villages. For how many schools in their own villages did they lend a helping hand to set up sports facility or popularize football.
Or what have they done to popularize or support aspiring footballers in their own political constituencies and villages.
Do something concrete guys, your words and the usual jargon stinks!

[murlikt]

I had to take my frustration out..again
I cannot believe that while India is slowly becoming a bad sports nation (sad but reality) we still have corrupt politicians running our sport I cannot believe it. There really must be a struggle to change the people in the administration because they must be responsible for failure. The whole world laughs at us they say "1 billion people, and they can't find good footballers". We have good footballers! We have fans! But of course the public want to see winners not losers so there needs to be a change from the top. Can you believe the Vice president of the AIFF is also the Aviation minister for India? Like this they are not showing respect to a great sport. And it is sad but many Indians accept this because there is no way to get them out. The govt. must step in, but since the AIFF is run by politicians they will leave the issue. I dont expect India to play in the world cup for a LONG time but it just shows we will be average team for ever if we accept it!

Here are some nice views on this issue:

http://in.sports.yahoo.com/060627/48/65fzi.html
http://oheraldo.in/node/15681
http://ndtv.com/debate/showdebate.asp?s ... ory=Sports

I dont want to bring down the excitement from the world cup but right now Indian football needs to be changed otherwise we will not get world respect. Australia is not a superpower or economic giant and they are not as wealthy nation as America but they have world respect because they respect all sports not only cricket. Iwas reading that Aussie football was BANKRUPT just recently and full of politics their national team had to pay for their plane tickets out of their pocket, and after that the whole administration was sacked by the govt. and now look what they have done. Come on India!

[goan_star]

I aggree with you. Down with Dasmunshis, Kalmadis , and their ilks.
The only thing these guys have done is ruin Indian sport.

But, why are we, the people of India, are keeping quiet?? why can't our past players, the state administrators, the people who call themselves 'lovers of Indian football' speak out or do something about it!!

At least, the like-minded people should comeout and form a parallel body in India and promot sports in a big way. I am sure, if like-minded people come together, finance wouldn't be a problem. What is needed is enthusiasm and aggresiveness from the people.

The political guys can rock simply because of the lacklustre attitude and complete apathy of the large Indian population towards sports.
Cricket, the lousiest game, is also a biggest enemy of Indian sports!!
IMHO

Throw out Dashmunshi, Kalmadi, Gill et al, clean Indian sports!!

[jaydeep]

Now Fifa declared new calculation system for ranking ... In that the most important change to the calculation of the ranking is that it will no longer take into account the last eight years of results but only the last four ... At the same time, all of the other factors previously taken into account (result, importance of match, strength of opponents, regional strength, number of matches considered) were tested, analysed and, in some cases, totally revised ... In fact, two of the factors that were previously used (goals scored and home advantage) will no longer have any impact on the ranking.

New Ranking List - In bracket previous ranking.

1  (1) Brazil 1630 pts
2  (13) Italy 1550  pts
3  (9) Argentina 1472  pts
4  (8) France 1462  pts
5  (10) England 1434  pts
6  (3) Netherlands 1322  pts
7  (5) Spain 1309  pts
8  (7) Portugal 1301  pts
9  (19) Germany 1229  pts
10 (2) Czech Republic 1223 pts

13 (35) Switzerland 1028 pts
15 (45) Ukraine  961 pts
16 (5) USA  933

All Asian teams goes out of top 45 world FIFA ranking with exception of newly included Australia .. We go down by 13 place in ranking ...

33 (42) Australia 738  pts
47 (23) Iran 624  pts
49 (18) Japan 615  pts
50 (60) Uzbekistan 606  pts
56 (29) Korea Republic 557  pts

81 (34) Saudi Arabia 399  pts
89 (68) China PR 343  pts
126 (137) Maldives 164  pts
130 (117) India 151  pts
138 (136) Sri Lanka 124  pts
143 (140) Bangladesh 114  pts     
153 (153) Pakistan 91  pts
164 (169) Nepal 66  pts

Jaydeep.

[Prashant]

126 (137) Maldives 164  pts
130 (117) India 151  pts
138 (136) Sri Lanka 124  pts
143 (140) Bangladesh 114  pts   
153 (153) Pakistan 91  pts
164 (169) Nepal 66  pts

Maldives is the highest ranked south asian team? That's pretty interesting - what is their population?

[vkd_1717]

the fifa football ranking always were, are and always will be nothing but a joke ... they say nothing about how good or bad a team is

[url=http://heres%20an%20article%20on%20it]http://www.football365.com/news/story_188573.shtml[/url]

[Dhruv]

The new FIFA rankings are actually much better and much easier to understand and calculate.  The way the rankings work NOW is quite simple:

You get 3-1-0 points from a match depending on whether you win, draw or lose.
The matches are rated according to a weight....
Friendly 1.0
World Cup qualifier and continental qualifier 2.5
Continental final competition and FIFA Confederations Cup 3.0
World Cup final competition 4.0
The Strength of the opponent is important and is calculated by [200 – ranking position]/ 100 the #1 team is 2.00 and teams below 150 are all 0.5

These are all multiplied together and then multiplied by 100 to give a whole number.  An average (total points/games played) for a rolling calendar year is taken into account in the rankings.

The number of total points is then weighted by the year in you got them (100% - 50% - 30% - 20%) for year 1 to year 4.  and you have the final points tally.

Maldives recently (in the WC qualifying) drew with Korea and so they got a lot more points.  They also made the final of the SAFF Cup recently where they lost in the final narrowly to India (1-0). 

Also both India and Maldives finished with 4 points from their encounters in the World Cup Qualies Group 2 Asia, Sri Lanka was the only other team from the list to make it and had 2 points so... India's 4 points were against Oman and Singapore (ranked 86 and 111 now) and Maldives against Korea and Vietnam (ranked 54 and 141).  So basically they are pretty close to the same level (in terms of results) with Maldives arguably slightly better (Korea draw) and that is reflected in the rankings.

I like the new rankings much better than the old ranking system (partly cause I can figure it out

[India1989]

That was a huge drop for India in fifa rankings. From 117 to 130. A huge drop. I didn't see India playing many matches but they lost to Japan 6-0 nothing few months back. But yeah Maldives did play very well and they earned a lot of points. It is sometime disheartening to see so small countries with so less population doing so good while India doing so bad.  India also started off their campaign badly by losing to Vancouver White caps in Canada 3-1. That was so sad. I wonder when Indian football will start being better and actually win matches more often against better team.

[jayakris]

OK, to continue this discussion ... Take a look at the u20 team selected for the South Asian Games (as posted by Chris today in our news article section)

Goalkeepers: Shilton Paul, Premjit Singh, Souvik Mondal
Defenders:Rakesh Masih, Hirohito Elangbam, Baljit Singh Sahni, Baldeep Singh, Gobin Singh
Midfielders: Zaidinmawia Hmar, Th Naoba Singh, Ong Tshering Lepcha, Lal Kamal Bhowmick, Branco Vincent Cardozo, Lalramluaha, Lalmalswama Hmar, Malsawmdawngliana
Forwards: Vimal Pariyar, Sushil Kumar Singh, Reisangmi Vasum, Beevan D'Mello

I find it incredible that there isn't a single player from Kerala in that team.   Either Kerala football is absolutely dead below age 20, or somebody is not scouting properly.   After all Kerala has been in the Santhosh Trophy final 11 times in the last 17 editions (2 titles, 2 runner-up and 1 3rd place finish in the last 5 itself) .. Sure, that is the senior trophy and not won by the juniors .. But are we to understand that suddenly there is no young talent coming up in Kerala at all - in a state that has so consistently produced at the higher level for the last two decades (actually even during this excellent 17 year period, hardly any Kerala kid except a Vijayan or Ancheri was ever really being hyped in the national junior teams) ...

A further look shows something like 11 or 12 players from Mizoram, Manipur, Assam.   Not too many from powerhouses Goa and Maharashtra either.  They don't play football at all in populous Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu ..

Are we really scouting players properly at all? .. Is all our young scouting happening only in the Northeast? ..  Has any scouts (yeah right, like they exist!) or coaches in the Indian football organization ever gone to Malappuram in Kerala?

Or is it that our coaches are so enamored with the heights or speeds of some these kids in some parts of India that we are overlooking other takented kids elsewhere in India? .. I have been hearing about all these supertalents from the NorthEast areas and tribal belts for a while, at least for a decade, but except a Bhutia or two, are we really seeing them producing at the higher level.

Do we have unbalanced, uncoordinated scouting, or is it all just nonexistent?

I have not studied this all that deeply - but anybody have any thoughts?

Jay

[murlikt]

You have a good point, that Kerala players are missing even though they perform well in every Santosh trophy. My idea is

1.) Most of these players come through TFA, so it is natural that many TFA players come from the north-east and Bengal.

2.) Kerala has no club in the NFL, so players like Lalkamal, Pariyar, Sushil, Baldeep, Baljeet, they are all signed with NFL clubs like Mohun Bgana, East Bengal, JCT. I think some others play with Churchill FC. Dont get me wrong some of the best Indian players come from Kerala, but the coach will choose players who train with the top clubs.

3.) The scouting is not the best, because as we know the scouting system in India is has not brought results.

I hope Kerala gets a team in the NFL, because the talent surely is there, but now with the professional league coming I dont know how teams like SBT will be allowed to play.

[goan_star]

I belive states like Kerala should stegnthen their local leagues. I wonder if they at all have competitions in age groups.
The talent at NFL will come from local leagues.Except for Bengal and Goa, all the other local leagues are in doldrums.
If we strengthen local state leagues, we will definately reach out to more people and polularize the game to far corners.
Honestly, I don't think NFL has created much of a national impact since its inception. It is being conducted as a routine affair.
Ideally there should be strong state leagues, with NFL filling in. Just like, Premiership and UEFA.

[jimmy]

We are now ranked higher then New Zealand.

Wow, that is pretty good since NZ as 4 million people.    I recall losing to Iceland a few years back (a country with 299,000 people).

Guess what arjun we are higher ranked then countries which has higher population then NZ. Guess what, if you haven't noticed then we are higher ranked then Pakistan which has a population of 160 million. And if i can recall then quite a few years back India beat a country which has higher population then us. Which is China. It was quite a few years back but still we beat them. India lost to Iceland in 2000. That was 6 years back.

Anyways arjun you do very good jokes but unfortunately those are kinda lame.

India 1989,  U R  da MAN !!!!