When will the 'sleeping giant' of world football wake up?

They say football is growing in India, and that it is getting its footing deep into the masses. The success of the Indian Super League (ISL) has been pushed forward as the shining example of India's stride in the right direction. We celebrated the ISL becoming the fourth biggest league in the world in terms of attendance - its average attendance of 24,357 is lower only than the Bundesliga (Germany), the Premier League (England) and La Liga (Spain) - but in reality it is turning out to be just a bright light blinding the eyes from the crumbling of football in the country.

There is no sign of the so-called 'sleeping giant' waking up from its deep slumber. Rather it is looking to be heading towards a coma soon as India's football coach Stephen Constantine had himself expressed after losing to Guam in the World Cup Qualifiers a few months back.

"If we do not change, Indian football will die and that is clear. We are already at death's door and that is why we are (ranked) 156. So if we do not align our calendar with that of the rest of the world, then what are we doing? What do we expect to do? We can have a hundred youth academies but they are not in competitive leagues. If they are not competing at the same time as the rest of the world...," Constantine had told firstpost.com in August.

The glitz of the new cash-rich league has forced the guardian of the sport, the All India Football Federation (AIFF), to neglect traditional structures like the I-League, Federations Cup and so on. Instead of generating more avenues for the players, it has swindled even the existing opportunities from the national players. The AIFF has recently scrapped the Fed Cup and the I-League, India's FIFA recognised premier tournament, is suffering under the shadow of the more glamorous ISL. The priority of the AIFF seems to be just organising the newly founded league, even at the cost of the national team.

Brazil legend and Delhi Dynamos's coach-cum-player Roberto Carlos has rightly pointed out that only in India he has seen the league continuing at the time its national team is playing important FIFA fixtures.

Carlos expressed shock that an ISL match had been kept on the same day as India's World Cup qualifier. "Such kind of things happen only here. In Brazil, when the national squad is going to play, everyone stops playing in the other leagues," the Brazilian said.



The situation is such that Constantine has also expressed his frustration at not getting any practice matches or friendlies before important fixtures.

The AIFF will definitely point out that as per regulation of FIFA, they have asked ISL clubs to release the India players four days prior to the international matches. It's true that rules have been followed but when the team is struggling so much and lost all the second round qualifying matches so far, a consecutive five matches in a row including yesterday's loss to Oman, the team should get more time to gel by playing more practice matches as requested by the national coach.

The Indian football team has been on a downward spiral for a while, and touched the bottom when it lost to tiny Guam (ranked 174th to India's 141st at the time) 1-2 in their second match of the World Cup Qualifiers in July. Since then, they have added three more defeats - 0-3 to Iran, 1-2 to Turkmenistan and 0-3 to Oman and the result is that they are now at 167 in the FIFA rankings. Guam since then have improved to 150, after touching their best ever 146 in August-September. India hit their lowest ever FIFA ranking this year when they were placed 173 in the world in March.

Five consecutive defeats in the qualifiers has left them almost out of 2019 Asian Cup qualification too, for which they have qualified thrice in the past with the most recent being in 2011 (Qatar). It will be a testing time for India when they host Guam in the return leg in New Delhi on November 12, 2015, their next and last international outing of the year.

India have played eight international matches so far in 2015, winning only one against Nepal in the first round of the AFC's 2018 World Cup qualifier in March. It was their first competitive match of the year and since then they endured five defeats and two draws (both against Nepal) in seven games. And if the down slides continues, India will definitely break the lowest ranking mark of 173 soon.