It has to be tough for Igor Stimac. The Croatian, with an enviable playing career, was parachuted into India with much fanfare to take the Indian team - fresh off impressive performance if not results in the AFC Asian Cup back in 2019 - to the next level.
There were reams of articles written on the coach’s credentials as to how under him India would play attractive football, exactly what appeared to be lacking under Stimac’s predecessor Stephen Constantine. Now, 29 months later, the performances and results have been erratic, a full-fledged Indian team huffed and puffed their way to the SAFF Championship, propped up by an ageless Sunil Chhetri. Yes, they did improve as the tournament progressed, but this is a competition to which India had sent their U-23 side previously.
That win will paper over the cracks, for the time being. But Stimac is no fan favourite, left seeking a solution for a problem beyond his paycheck, blessed and cursed with a team forever in transition. This is not to absolve the Croatian of his shortcomings, he has his cross to bear - be it tactics or team setup. The constant recall of the Covid-19 pandemic stopping the team's evolution is also losing credence.
This much is clear: Stimac is the very public face of the problem, not the cause.
We can look at the technical committee, who despite some uninspiring results chose to hand the coach an extension. Perhaps it's only fair, he gets a chance to succeed or fail in the objective he was brought in for - to qualify for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup.
The idea, which Stimac said was mandated, that India could play a brand of football that is technical and fast-paced at the international level is misplaced. The performance of the clubs in the Indian Super League owes a huge deal to foreigners like Ahmed Jahouh, Dimas Delgado or Edu Bedia, not to mention the foreign players across the spine. Surely, those expectations cannot be transposed into the international realm.
"Everyone wants to play like Manchester City, the players are giving their best but is that enough to play that style of football? Do we have enough individuals with the technique and quality, who can break down defences? We cannot just blame Stimac," says former India player Renedy Singh.
At junior levels, certainly at the big stages, India has stuck to their strengths. In the U-16 Asian Cup in 2018, when India reached the quarterfinals after 16 years, the side kept three cleansheets in the Group stages; surrendered possession, got outshot in three of the four games and scored one goal - a penalty. The idea was clear, play with grit, discipline, dogged determination and hit on the counter. To change one’s philosophy from age group to senior international level is not easy.
"How a country wants to play is dependent on if that country is producing the players to play that way. The work ethic of the Indian players is excellent, willingness to fight and compete is there and athletically they can compete with any teams in Asia," Constantine, once said.
Also Read | India blank Nepal 3-0, win SAAF Championship for 8th time, Chhetri equals Messi with 80 goals
Lack of games
That the ISL is amongst, if not the longest leagues in the country may come as a surprise to many. The winner plays 23 games in under five months. The Domestic Cup competitions are either in hibernation or reduced in stature. Durand Cup is a case in point. A tournament, the third oldest in the world and one that has witnessed World Wars and Indian independence, is struggling to hold its head above water, reduced to a pre-season tournament. But at least it survived. The I-League has been battered and bruised. Second Division League is none the better.
Iran's top two leagues have 34 teams between them. In South Korea, K-League is a 38-game season while a K-League 2 club plays 36 games
If you don’t play, you don’t improve.
“Long season breaks and rest are for players and teams who play 30-40 games a season,” says Pradhyum Reddy. “Where are Indian players getting game time? The leagues, and local leagues, last for a couple of months and after that where do they play? The weather is not always conducive but there is surely a six-month window at least.”
This is a far cry from the time AIFF tried to restrict the players from playing too many games by giving a book in which pages had to be sealed after every game. The way the local leagues and national tournaments co-existed and made their schedules around each other to ensure the best clubs participated was interesting indeed.
"Those days we played 10 months, so many tournaments before and after the league. Rovers Cup, Durand Cup, IFA Shield, Calcutta League, national league... We had so many games. AIFF had to save players from playing too much because of injury concerns," Renedy says.
The 27-game ISL would have already been established but for Covid-19. It is now slated for next season. That will help. ISL has done a lot of good for Indian football, especially in terms of marketing and popularising the product. But it stands atop the shaky ground. As Ranjit Bajaj says "You can never have a robust first division if you don't have a strong second division. The root has to be strong."
State units and calendar
AIFF had released a four-year calendar with tentative dates for events. Yes, Covid-19 played spoilsport but even otherwise, State association officials say, there are changes in the calendar, which means the local calendar also changes. There are State associations that display apathy - Chennai Football League has been dormant for four years, this from the state who won the I-League in 2018-19, through Chennai City FC, with a team brimming with local talent.
They are also underfunded.
"There are State and district associations who don't even have offices," says an official. "You also have to register players in the CRS (Centralised Registration System), which many of them are unable to do properly. In terms of money, AIFF has to give at least some money to the States for football activities."
Some associations are trying hard. Karnataka State Football Association, for example, has charted a calendar from October to May 31, starting with the BDFA Super Division, weekends earmarked for youth football and a three-tier women’s league.
"We want to try and align with AIFF’s calendar. If there are some changes we will do that as well. We try to end Super Division by January so that the players can go and play elsewhere once the transfer window opens. Three months of football is not enough," says M Satyanarayana, KSFA secretary.
In fact, KSFA are allowing others to conduct tournaments under their aegis to ensure players get game time. A vibrant local football structure, now hit by the pandemic, is also why States like Manipur and Mizoram account for a major chunk of players in ISL.
Youth development
When Minerva Punjab won the Hero Elite League - the U-18 youth league - in 2018-19, they played a total of 16 games. On an average, the teams in the Sub-junior, Junior and Elite league play between 6-14 games, depending on how far they go in the tournament.
"In Bengaluru before the pandemic, we would play KSFA youth league, so 7-8 matches. AIFF structure has three age groups (U-12, 14, 17), you play 7-8 games at least there. Then there are private tournaments, like double pass development where you play around 25 matches in U-11, U-9," said Bappaditya Bhattacharjee, founder and director of Roots Football School.
"The problem comes because from U-12 onwards, you have to play 11 aside, so the number of tournaments goes down. That is the age we develop most and that is where our problem starts and we fall down. Before that, we can compete with anyone but this break means you can't catch up."
In Japan, the average games (official and friendlies) for U-15 and above are between 40-50 games. Indian players are playing catch-up against their contemporaries by over 20 games per season from their teenage years. That's not a race they can win.
"Shunsuke Nakamura and I are in the same batches, he is the best player I played against. We played Japan in the U-19s, we lost 1-0 or 2-1. After seven years, we played again in Saitama, we lost 7-0. Just imagine the way they improved," Renedy once said.
AIFF has 83 accredited academies, only those are allowed to compete in the national youth leagues. Yes, there are many who do not have the AIFF accreditation and run coaching the whole year-round. But again, the number of games is an issue.
In Bengaluru, the academies take it upon themselves to play against each other during the weekends to ensure their players get game time.
Age fraud
The known but unspoken boogeyman in Indian football. It is rampant and comes from shortsightedness and the mistaken understanding of youth development.
This leads to exclusion errors. Based on multiple studies, children born in the first quarter of the year (based on cut off point) are over-represented in the age group because coaches are unable to tell the difference between maturity and ability at early ages. At the younger level, even 10 months make a big difference in size, strength, height and power. This disappears in the senior level, but then the question becomes, have the bigger children developed the skills to offset the loss of physical maturity. Conversely, the smaller kid would have had to find solutions, develop the techniques and skills to survive against the bigger kids. The bigger struggle in this is to keep the kids in the system, to have a pathway that ensures the slow starters and late developers are not discouraged and drop out. This is when the difference is in months; it is years in India.
"Over-aged boys look better than others because they are bigger and stronger. When they go to senior level, they get exposed," says Bappaditya. "It's adults who are the reason why this exists. Winning is not why you do grassroots. Unfortunately, in our system everything is result-driven. AIFF is trying, but the collective conscience of all of us adults has to stop them."
To boil the complexities and challenges of Indian football down to one man or a league would be wrong. It's systematic, age-old, short-sighted and well documented.
In 2013, India came up with a Master Plan - branded Lakshya scheme. Over the course of the 125-page document, plans are laid for the development of Indian football - men's team, women's team, clubs, leagues, referees, youth development…
The document can be found in a dusty, long-forgotten corner of the federation's website.
A year short of its 10th anniversary, India has had three coaches and a handful of Technical Directors. Far from ideal to make any long term plans. With a myopic view, you will always miss the big picture.
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