Once a famous character from one of the famous movie franchise quoted “It doesn’t matter whether you win from an inch or a mile, winning is winning.” This quote was well fitted for Iceland when they battled Argentina and end it with a draw. Its spectacular to watch Iceland joining the likes of Argentina, Brazil, Germany or Portugal. So, here’s the stats Iceland with merely 3.34 lakh population, was ranked 133, below India till only two years ago or so. And here is India with a population of 132.42 crores and increasing everyday yet again this year we are not playing for FIFA World Cup 2018. What we lack? Motivation? Funds? Infrastructure? Public Interest? Chak De India sequel?

India, a place where cricket is treated as a national sport but in the last 10 years there has been a great share of interest in football. Apart from Indian Premier League, we are now bound to be equally excited for Indian Super League, that shows the growth in interest among the people and bigger promotions, celebrity involvements, live broadcasting have made football a sensation. Then what? Well football is popular in pockets: Goa, Kerala, West Bengal, Kolkata and not in Hindi heartland. So, we don’t see a Kohli, Sharma or a Tendulkar but we see Fernandes, Cheytri, Borges and Gurung representing India. Sounds like Avengers, fighting only in New York and claiming to save the world.

India, a place where a good sporting infrastructure isn’t available and specifically for football. But, there are many African and Latin American nations that play way better than us and are able to compete in World Cup and produce players that are legends because these nations might lack proper facilities for big leagues, but they don’t lack enthusiasm which is why we are still way far away to match up with the football culture.

Till we fully analyse why and where we lack, we just have to live with the hope, Sunil Cheytri gave us when Indian Football Team was cleared to play in Asian Games. So let’s just cope up with hope until we reach a position where we can cope up with confidence on Indian Football Team.