Comparing India's fastest XI with FIFA 17's best teams

It is a well-known fact that India is a vastly underperforming footballing nation. India is a country gifted with a talent pool of over a billion people and yet, it is difficult to find a single Indian footballer who has consistently performed on the world stage.

When it comes to the world of FIFA, India has been a part of the team rosters since 2013, not due to its relevance on the international stage but because of the popularity of the EA franchise in the country. The Indian team is the lowest rated international team in the game with its attack, midfield and defence rated between 57 and 62 rating points.

It is often said that Indian footballers lag behind those from other countries due to their lack of pace and weaker physique and let’s face it, pace remains one of the most important attributes of any player in the game. We decided to test this theory out by comparing India’s fastest XI on FIFA 17 with the starting lineups of five of the most popular international teams in the game, leading to some surprising results.

We picked five popular, widely perceived to be world class teams, namely Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Belgium and Portugal to compare with the fastest Indian squad. The comparison was done by calculating the average speed of the lineup and comparing it with the Indian average.

The fastest Indian team had an average speed of 70.18 rating points, with the fastest player being left-full back Keegan Pereira with a speed rating of 83, which happens to be faster than that of Germany’s Thomas Muller (more on that later).

The fastest of the five teams chosen on FIFA 17 happen to be Argentina, which comes as no surprise considering they boast speedsters like Sergio Aguero, Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria, all of whom have sprint speeds above 85.

Argentina finish with an average speed of 75.09 but Indian central defender Sandesh Jhinghan still manages to outpace the Argentinian defence pairing of Nicolas Otamendi and Ramirez Funes Mori with his speed of 78, while Pritam Kotal also manages to outpace his left back counterpart Marcos Rojo with his rating of 77 to Rojo’s 74.

Widely accepted to be one of the fastest attacking units in the game, Brazil’s average speed rating is a mammoth 73.72, outpacing the Indians by almost four rating points (not a huge margin if the gulf in rankings between the sides is considered). Boasting a forward line of Willian, Neymar and Douglas Costa, the Selecao are nearly unstoppable on the counterattack. The Brazilians outpace the Indians in all positions except central defence where Sandesh Jhinghan is faster than Brazil’s Thiago Silva and Miranda pairing.

The world champions, Germany, have attacking talents like Thomas Muller, Mesut Ozil and Andre Schurrle at their disposal in FIFA 17 while Marco Reus is absent, given his injury at the time of FIFA 17’s release. This lineup would be expected to be pretty rapid, considering that the Germans have a reputation for clinical counter attacking football.

One would expect the world champions to be quick, if not the quickest, but definitely not slower than one of the worst teams in the game. This, though, happens to be the case. It turns out that the Indian fastest XI on average is faster than the German lineup which has an average speed of 69.73. In fact, German midfielder Toni Kroos has a speed rating of 37, making him even slower than Indian shot-stopper Subrata Paul who is rated at 46.

The Belgians have a squad bursting with quality in all areas of the pitch and are vastly superior to the Indians in terms of ability with almost all players rated above 80 overall. The Reds also boast one of the faster attacks in FIFA 17 with Yannick Carrasco, Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard all having speed ratings of above 85, giving Belgium an average speed rating of 71.72.

In a scenario similar to the ones above, Mr Reliable, Sandesh Jhinghan, once again comes up trumps against the Belgian backline of Vincent Kompany and Toby Alderweireld.

In another surprising turn of events, European champions Portugal, who have the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani in their ranks have an average speed of only 68.45, largely due to their plodding midfield triumvirate of Joao Mario, Joao Moutinho and Andre Gomes.

The Indians manage to outpace the Portuguese in almost every position except attack and completely dominate the speed ratings in midfield.

With speed ratings so important in the FIFA realm, the Indian team is in a curious situation where its players are faster than the starting lineups of both, the world and European champions, while at the same time rubbishing the theory that pace is everything in FIFA.

If it was, we would see the Indians defeating the Germans and the Portuguese with ease while Kroos would have been surpassed by Eugeneson Lyngdoh in the game; something which doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.