Indian football: The new horizon

Scouting

The first and foremost reason to be tackled is the lack of young talents in the squad, and India’s failure on the international stages exposes this fact crystal clear. That said, it doesn’t mean that India is short of domestic talents. However, the framework to find and filter the talents haven’t designed yet.

It is the need of the hour to find and nurture young footballers and hand over the nation’s football future to those with whom it is safe, secure and will prosper further. The AIFF, partnering with central and state ministries, federations, clubs, academies and educational institutions could take massive steps towards the above said future.

AIFF should improve the quality of ongoing scouting and grass-root programs in such a way that it reaches out to the children hailing from both, the cities and the villages as well.

ISL Grassroots

Indian education system should also be blamed, perhaps as it doesn’t encourage the students to focus on anything apart from academics. Balancing between the academics and sports is mandatory because none can deny the fact that not every student is destined to be an engineer, doctor, scientist or advocate. Maybe the system is not helping to bring out the skills and abilities of the student and it is the society’s responsibility to admit it and initiate the reformations.

Street football - Kerala

Villages and small towns are football treasures with plenty of local talents concealed inside. Spotting and providing them with good opportunities can help them to show themselves to outside world.

While we’ve enjoyed watching great players like Pele and Messi running the shows with their magical on-field abilities, one thing we often forget is that they were also born in such villages.

They were spotted by their respective childhood clubs and the rest is history. If India had a better scouting system with great officials and coaching staff, we might already be watching them locking horns with European teams and getting ready to travel to Russia.

Therefore finding, cutting and polishing the hidden gems of this soil should result in a great team in future than selecting uninterested and ineligible players. Who knows, one day India will be crowned as the World champions and an Indian boy or girl might be presented with a Ballon d’Or!