Football: Indian National Team news ...

[Omkara]

We had 65% ball control.....yet we couldn't score.

[jayakris]

At least the defense is still there. The coach is known for his defensive integrity. But we just need to start scoring. It just needs to happen.

[Omkara]

Lost 0-3. End lower than Mauritius in the table.

We have really fallen of the cliff

[arjun2761]

Haha! That must have been a very short cliff -- more like a hill. Our football team has never been better than 100-120 in recent times even if they manipulated the FIFA rankings for a short while. Their ELO rating was always a lot worse.

[Omkara]

Then let's follow ELO rankings only

[arjun2761]

https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/f99da4f73 ... 5a-pdf.pdf

Interestingly, FIFA has now adopted some form of ELO ranking but perhaps starting from a base from their old system. So, the two rankings will likely get closer over time. ELO ranking wise India is 163 while our FIFA world ranking is also down to 124 (and presumably going further down based on recent results).

BTW, it is easy to see how poor our talent is when you look at the top Indian leagues. The best players on most of these club teams are jaded, faded foreign players and not the Indians on the club teams. In turn, the Indian club teams in these leagues are not competitive against even the second and third tier Asian club championships. Needless to say, none of our players play abroad in any of the developed soccer leagues outside India. Unless we can find a way to upgrade our talent, Indian football will remain mostly non-competitive at the world level and marginally competitive even in Asia.