In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Vijay Krishna, a huge football fan joins us to analyse Indian football as it stands today. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Vijay Krishna

What gives the game of football its universal appeal? The answer is simple: it is the game of the masses. That is precisely why “the beautiful game” is so popular everywhere. In that case, why isn’t it popular in India? Of course, it is popular. Why else would anyone want to watch games in the middle of the night?

But what of Indian football? Without resorting to any other means, answer one simple question. Who captains the Indian football team? Baichung Bhutia, you say? Sure of the answer? Well that underscores why Indian football isn’t taken seriously by many, though football per se is rising in popularity amongst the youth of this country.

And yet, this was the country which qualified to play in the 1950 World Cup finals. Of course, it’s another story that we didn’t travel because the football team insisted on playing barefoot. It might also surprise many to know that some of the country football clubs are older than most popular football clubs in Europe, including Manchester United, Real Madrid and AC Milan.

So what ails Indian football? Is it politics, lack of money, lack of interest or are we simply condemned to support Brazil, Italy, England and the like? To understand the situation better, I spoke to a few officials in some football associations. People in such positions will hardly concede that it is internal politics which stalls the development of the game. Lack of money is the reason everyone cites.

Lack of money for what? Officials argue at the national level, domestic football is more popular than domestic cricket. There is a lot more money on offer too. But football associations do not command the same amount of resources as does the BCCI. One of the major expenses is in conducting national-level competitions. This entails a lot of spendings; but everyone claims that competitions are the only way to popularise the sport.

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We have seen pee goal. There is a lot more obviously. Claire Heald of BBC goes on an expedition to find what you can buy this world cup. See the pictures here..

.. and yes, do buy some thing even though some people will squirm and tell you the products are over priced. Ignore the squirming spoil sports. After all isn’t price what buyers and sellers agree to?

There is a bargain on the things as well as BBC points out:

A bargain 9.95 euros buys three thongs in a plastic football. They come in the host nation’s colours, Brazil’s and Italy’s.

So which country’s thong(s) are you buying this world cup?

Heat’s first ever title. Another title for Shaq. One for Wade and Mourning. Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you Heat will win it and Mr. Nowitzki will run out of steam. World Cup fever has meant that I have missed most of the NBA finals and an exciting NHL playoffs final series as well.

Dhoomk2 informed me that ESPN-star haven’t been showing the finals live in India. I was shocked by it as this is in complete contrast to the Jordan days where then showed all games live from around the Conference semis. When he switched on his TV set late at night, they were showing some aerobics or something. Bewildering.

It is true that the NBA has gone downhill since then but the current playoffs have seen a rebirth for the league. ESPN-star missed the bus to attract new viewers to the game and have a select audience. Live telecasts of the NBA don’t clash with other sports most of the time and had a more serious approach been given to NBA, I am sure it would have reaped long term benefits.

I kept seeing repeated ads of TNA between breaks of the world cup highlights show apart from the cricket ads. Surely other sports have their audiences in India apart from cricket, football and erm, wrestling? A few days ago, I saw an ad for Wimbledon thus -

The only time you get to see girls groan on grass.

Uh WHAT? How is that a good way to draw an audience for a sport? If people are interested in porn or have a soft porn mentality, they won’t switch on to a sports channel for the same. Even if they switch on to sports for a moment as a result of this, you are targetting the wrong kind of audience which isn’t sustainable.

It also shows that you are not confident in the sports viewing audience of the country. True, the segment is smaller than usual. But if you think having a Harsha Bhogle presenting the world cup will draw in the house wifes and the cricket following audience to follow football in India, you are missing the picture. It is similar to Mandira Bedi being called up by Set-Max though not as clearly identifiable.

If you do not take the audience seriously, it will not take you seriously. It will switch to the other sports channels whenever it can - some thing I am sure you would not like.

I am not talking about the drug here. Just to clarify. He isn’t putting any thing fishy in the bottle in the above picture either. How do I know? I have my sources.

Federer has been dominant on grass and we all know about that. He has now equalled the Borg record for consecutive wins on the surface. People are not satisfied though. The common point raised is - Federer doesn’t have to deal with as competetive a scenario as Sampras or Borg had to. Borg had his fierce rivals we know about. Even Sampras had guys like Agassi, Rafter, Ivanisevic.

Who does Federer have in comparison? Hewitt, Roddick. Big question marks over Nadal and Safin on grass. I feel this is a bit unfair. The career of these players isn’t over. We do not know how Roddick or Hewitt or some one else from the current era will be looked back upon. So we should wait a while before comparing Federer’s accomplishments on the surface with past greats.

It is no small feat to equal the record of consecutive wins. Sampras, for all his grass court prowess and great wins, couldn’t manage it. Federer has. It will be fascinating to compare the two players over all once Federer retires taking the full career of the two into account. Sampras didn’t win the French. He won X titles but not title A. On the other hand, Federer won Y titles plus B,C should not be forgotten. What will be equally fascinating will be matching up the two players on how they would fare on grass versus each other.

Federer did defeat Sampras in a Wimbledon at such a young age - a match which is now part of the folklore of tennis. But who would have won more had they lived in the same time? Could any of these two players, known for their domination, dominate the other over all? How would the almost complete Federer game match up with the unplayable Sampras serve on clutch points? For now, we should cherish that we can see Federer playing live and hope some one does up his game to create a memorable Wimbledon.

A lot of teams are not meeting expectations after just 1 or 2 games into the world cup - France, England and Brazil in their own distinct ways. Does it mean that the expectations were misplaced in the first place? To an extent, that is true for every team for if you asked any fan before the world cup regardless of the team he was supporting, the optimism regarding his team was a key aspect you could identify immediately before any thing else.

So the disappointment will exist for fans of most countries by the time the world cup is over. There will be the happy fans from Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana but most fans are likely to feel sad rather than happy on their team’s performances as their team exits. For England, the gelling isn’t happening. There is also the feeling that the team and it’s stars are not really as good as the media makes them out to be. For France, a victory jinx seems more inexplicable. The team weren’t favourites before the world cup begun but who would have thought that they would be winless after two games.

Zidane is playing well and the team is loaded with talent. I was speaking with a friend and his explanation, radical as he termed it, was that the players play at different paces which hampers the team over all. For example, Henry is too fast for the rest of the team. Synchronisation is vital and it is true that France is missing that at some level. However, it is also true that they have been unlucky with goals not happening. I do hope that their luck turns because it would be a shame if they went out early.

Enough about England and France. I have been born and brought up in Calcutta and so I could have easily been any one of those guys from the picture in the previous post. I will focus on the team I support - Brazil. It is easy to criticise and I don’t like criticising but I have little option left here. Brazil has been poor in the world cup so far and it has left a lot of fans in despair. One game can be ignored. Not two. Australia adopted a complete defensive strategy versus Brazil. Brazil is, after all, Brazil. More significantly, Australia already had three points in the bag and so even a point against the defending world cup champions would have been reason enough for a lot of celebration for them.

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Brazil football fans in Kolkata [Via BBC].

Decalink will feature once a week from next week. I duck this week’s Decalink though (excuse - time restraints and extremely slow connection). So you don’t find me giving you interesting links on golf, NBA playoffs, NHL, motorsport, cycling, tennis, cricket and any sport you might have missed.

I will give you one link though. Desipundit asked me to write on sports and the Indian blogosphere which can be read here. A must read if there ever will be one.

Okay, I will stop now.

I spoke about unpredictability in sport yesterday and it occured yet again - just one you least expected it as usual. The people were complaining about the lack of big upsets this world cup. There has been Ecuador but they aren’t in that strong a group or that big a threat in the over all picture. More importantly, they haven’t displaced any team that’s big.

Then, there was Ivory Coast. An extremely talented team which played an exciting and attacking football which can cause problems for any team. Sadly, talent alone does not win you world cups. You need defense. More importantly, you need experience and toughness which strides over the unpredctiability of sport - more so in a game like football.

Ghana has the same attacking streak in them and they upset a Czech team which looked so good in game 1. US drew their game which makes things all the more interesting. So it is all down to the last game now. Despite a round robin existing, it is always perilous when you are defeated in even one game. It can mean that you leave your fortune in the hands of other teams. It is not easy to win the world cup - even a moment of slip up leading to a goal and a game lost can mean an exit.

This has been a superb world cup so far and it now has an upset it needed to keep the excitement factor at a high level. I am still backing the Czech to reach round 2 but it will be down to one goal here or there now! On a different note, it is good that the US also drew a game. Apart from giving them a bleak hope, it also means out of the many who were excited about the world cup in the US this time around, at least some will stick on to following football which is so vital for the development of any sport.

How else can you explain Federer facing a match point against Olivier Rochus or this? Sport is a leveller and we see that every day.

CNN tracks Federer’s progress on grass this week:

Federer had struggled all week here beating Indian qualifier Rohan Bopanna 7-6 6-2 in the first round before battling over three sets to defeat France’s Richard Gasquet 7-6 6-7 6-4.

On a given day, any individual or team can defeat any one else. We think that the oft stated any thing can happen in sport is not always true. Then, we see Bangladesh defeat Australia in tests and Senegal defeat France in football. We know instantly that any thing can indeed happen in sport.

It always occurs when we least expect it. The unpredictability is thrilling and is one of the many factors which draws us to sport. It is a far more important aspect than we usually realise.

Watch it. Then watch it again. Then watch it one more time. Simply brilliant. As Gerry Armstrong said in the post match show in ESPN-Star, that is perfection for you.

Argentina scored 6 (should have been 7) against a shocked Serbia and Montenegro - the same Serbia and Montenegro which conceded just 1 goal in 10 games of qualifying in a group which had Spain. Amazing?

The goal which had in all 24 passes was another amazing aspect of this game - one of the greatest goals ever. You can watch that goal a 1,000 times and still it will not cease to amaze you.

Argentina were early favourites among many fans ages back for this world cup. They have an easy passage once they top the group of death till the semis. It can be argued that topping such a tough group should give the team topping it some advantage.

Brazil took centre stage after the early Argentina favourites tag though. They have a team full of talent and as more and more people saw that, Brazil became the team with the favourites tag for the world cup. I am banking on them to win it. Being a huge Brazilian fan since 1994, I have never been more confident. This is a dream team. They have tough matches early on in round 2 and it can prove the end if Brazil slip up.

I don’t see any one else challenging Brazil and Argentina. They are great teams and are destined to meet in the finals. At least I hope that they do meet in the final. Who are the dark horses? Not England. Please. It is almost laughable as far as I am concerned that many people think that England are serious contenders to reach the finals, let alone win the world cup. They look hyped to me. I would rate quite a few teams above them but let’s not go into that.

Coming back to the question, who are the dark horses? Czech Republic and Holland for me. These two teams can defeat any team on their day with a little bit of luck.

A staggering stat:

Edvin van der Sar has not conceded a goal in 976 minutes of competitive international football (before the Holland-Ivory Coast game). The last player to score off him in a non-friendly intenational was Finland’s Teemu Tainio in a World Cup qualifier in October 2004. [Via BBC]

Stats mean little when it comes down to the business on a given day. However, you cannot ignore 976 minutes, or 24 passes, or that Brazil will win it’s 6th world cup, as a matter of fact. ;)