iSporter Srijan Choudhary highlights the lack of interest and passion among Indian fans for the National football team citing the example of recent world cup qualifier played between India and UAE where two cheap red cards reduced the Indians to 9 men but there was no murmur in the Indian Blogosphere.
I still remember the morning of 28th April 2011 when all my friends who were Real Madrid and Barcelona fans were in a tussle on Twitter, Facebook and all social platforms available, all this cause of the sending off of the Madrid central defender Pepe when he had actually not touched Dani Alves.
The social football fight was also there on 7th May 2009 when Barcelona knocked out Chelsea with Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo disallowing many of the penalty chances that Chelsea should have actually got with Ballack and Drogba leading the race to shout at the ref.
But on 24th of July 2011 everything was all cool why should there be any issue no EPL no La Liga no SerieA so just for my so called football loving friends to know on 23rd July 2011 UAE defeated India 3-0 in the first leg of the World Cup qualifiers.
Oh please don't stress your head thinking why is this Jughead making such a hue and cry about a loss as it keeps happening in sports. I am making this hue and cry because India ended the match with only 9 men in blues on the field, with Red card being awarded to Debabrata Roy and Subrata Pal when there wasn't much of a physical contact in any of the two situations which led to the penalties and also the red cards.
Now where are the Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea fans gone come on how can you be a club faithful if you are not even close to being a country faithful? Every player in the world says and feels there is no better feeling than playing for your national team. Please a humble request don't start with the age old topic that Indian football is not that great come on how can it be great when their own countries football supporters have no idea about what they are going through.
The referee in that match was Banjar Al Dosari who is from Qatar, just asking the FIFA committee what were they actually thinking when they knew India were suppose to play Qatar before the qualifiers why designate Dosari to take control of the match. Me being very neutral follower of football won't comment anything more on this but would surely want to bring your attention on to the two Red card situations.
Debabrata Roy Red Card One of the UAE midfielder sent in a cross which was met by a deflection and was falling in the path of the UAE striker with Roy only chasing him and Subrata Pal in total control to snatch the ball from the air but then the Striker came tumbling down holding his ankle with there being no physical contact from Roy only a defensive pressure. What next? Debabrata was given his marching orders.
Subrata Pal Red Card Considered to be one the highly experienced and talented shot stoppers in Asian sub continent especially due to his Spiderman style reflexive saves. Almost same situation as the first one the ball crossed in the box and the ball being in the reach of the Indian keeper he jumped caught the ball took a step and raised his knees to his abdomen as all keeper do which is very normal. And with the striker charging towards him Subrata just brushed the UAE striker on the side ribs and the striker who had a good course in play acting and loved the lush green turf started to roll on the lush green turf which I would say surely deserved a yellow card. But Subrata's past reputation (Junior Incident) came to haunt him and was shown the red card.
Has anyone got any reason that would speak in favor of the mockery made by the referee of the beautiful game? But surely everyone would want to congratulate our coach Armando Colaco who has done a great job with his side, even after being nine men down for most of the match we played much much better than 11 men under Houghton. We were passing well, we were trying to attack and we played as a unit, what more can you expect 9 men to do against 12 men (ref included). We displayed courage, talent and passion to win.
Now my question comes back to all the readers where were all the football followers in India when this was happening why were there no fights on the social network forums? Where had your football following spirit disappeared? If this sought of situation would have happened in cricket I'll tell you what all would have happened:
- A group would have been made on Facebook say "BAN DOSARI" with 1 million followers.
- May be a Candle march may be at India gate.
- Or if it was a very critical situation say with respect to a match with Pakistan there would have been a massive discussion in parliament with bats and wickets been thrown around.
But in this case what happened NOTHING. For everyone who says India is not a footballing nation but a cricketing nation wouldn't it be better if we would be known as Sports Nation of the world.
If I take the first red card scenario and compare it with Puyol doing the same my Catalan supporter friends would have had the FB status "Puyol was at his amazing best but the ref was biased" and as for Pal's situation if Casillas would have got red carded my Castilian supporter friends would have had the status "Dosari has no idea what goalkeeping is all about". Come on guys I know Indian football still needs to develop a lot but come on show some respect, trust and support in your national team Climax holds same importance to Indian football as Dhoni does to Indian cricket.
"THESE ARE MY VIEWS ALONE"
The artice first appeared on http://magic-of-football.blogspot.com/
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AJ
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... That article was spot on...All Indian football faithful were devastated by those 2 needless red cards |
LIJO
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... This article should come on all newspapers in India. what an article. Indians who follow bloody cricket are bunch of losers. kudos to you SRIJAN CHOUDHARY for writing such an article. |
Shas
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... How bad we all indians are, we always cry that India doesnot knw how to play football but when we play none of us watch it.Even never ever i have seen any news on news channel.If it would have been the case of Dhoni's bday, they would have telecast it multiple times but for Indian football team,nothing.We have beaten Qatar by 2-1, still none of the channel have given importance to it.come on Indians do some thing for this lovely sport,Wake up... |
wang
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... Mr Dude....Indian fans are slowly loving Indian football. Come today to Ambedkar stadium..u will witness ..oh there are lots of fans for Indian football tooo???? If u r ignorant enuf and sees only twitter FB for EU football, pls check goal.com India in both FB and google , also in orkut(which is dead) Indian football fan community still active. U will get how fans have swollen in these years. |
wang
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... So ur profile says u r hardcore football fan but only of Real madrd etc..............but u know, am die hard fan of Lajong FC, Pune FC and East Bengal. I will make time to watch indian league but can miss EPL etc... so just grow up and see around...there lotz of Indian football fans like me who supprt national team to core. |
Srijan Choudhary
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... @LIJO thank you for your appreciation ... but plz dont abuse Cricket at the end of the day its a worthy sports which brings India together... but i am surely against the scenario that we used to have in our classroom all the importance to the toppers and the weak student remain weak.... |
Srijan Choudhary
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... @Shas surely agree to you that more importance is needed for indian football from media and AIFF  |
Srijan Choudhary
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... @Wang wow dude like your agression alot... and thank you for reminding me what i was missing in my profile that has been corrected.... but all i would say this article was meant for both of the groups who follow only EU football and also those who follow football including indian football.... for the first group this article meant that come on its always country above club and until they support us they hav no right in the world to call themselves a football follower.... and as for the group after they read this they should get hole of people who dont follow indian football and tell them they are needed... and yes i am real Madrid fan and that too for life. but at the same time i respect your sincerity for what you giving to Indian football Salute sir.... cheers mate hope we have a good fight tonight.... we need it... |
Amitava Das
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... Great article .............. chak de india We shall overcome, we shall overcome, We shall overcome someday; Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday. |
rayrohan
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... Absolutely correct on your views. I am as aghast as you at the nonexistent reaction of the indian 'fans' to the completely revolting refereeing in the previous game. I find it disgraceful that there are more people turning up for the matches of the Spanish and English leagues than there are to watch India play. But I do see some signs of improvement. I speak in hindsight of today's 2-2 draw in Delhi. There appeared to be a substantial crowd at the stadium cheering on each touch by an Indian player. Spurred on by this, and showing an amazing spirit of fight, India turned a 2-0 deficit around and drew a game where we both had more possession (55-45) and more shots on goal (4-3). The pitch proved a bit of a dampener on our normally flowing football, but the after the fight by our players, I could not be happier. My appeal to the football fans in this country is to stop the hypocrisy and start turning up to cheer on our nation. With our support, Indian football will only go up. |
sai
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... indian team plays good football compared to the facilites they are provided in comparision to other middle eastern teams and east asian nations , they were alloted just 10 crore rupees for preparation for asia cup , and this was a top level european club player earns in a week , just see the rise of south korea and japan in world football they have qualified for every world cup since 1998 , this to credit of their strong domestic league in place like kleague , players like honda and park ji sung play for top level european clubs among others , our respective fedrations are responsible for general decline of hockey and football of which india once was a power house , but excellent play by india today , they drew 2-2 in front of a big crowd hope indian football will once again regain its past glory |
wang
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... Thanks Srijan....but i hate people watching EPl etc and ignore Indian football completely for show off and boasting that they follow football. Thanks for clarification...and yeah Indian football shall raise..Go India go! |
wang
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... And i am eagerly waiting for I League in october to be telecast. I want to see Indian football. |
Neel
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... I completely concur with your thoughts, too bad that its very important to get our country mates to get hooked on to the Indian teams, NT as well as I League.... |
Neel
said:
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... I completely concur with your thoughts, too bad that its very important to get our country mates to get hooked on to the Indian teams, NT as well as I League.... |
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