Football in India

When you hear about India, football is hardly something you associate the world's 7th largest country with. This sport is not among the most popular and loved by Indians. And this logically leads to the fact that, historically speaking, the local clubs and the national team have almost no success on the Asian or world stage. The country has never qualified for the World Cup and until recently was outside the top 150 nations in the FIFA rankings. So you'd hardly take a football-related trip to India. Or not. For several years now, a mega project has been put into action, the aim of which is to completely change the perception of this sport along the Ganges River. The project is called the Indian Super League and is unparalleled in the world. What is it about?
The Indian Super League was established in 2013, and behind it are a global sports marketing and management company based in New York, a holding company that unites some of the most powerful Indian companies and the largest sports channel in the country. The aim of the league is to raise the level and increase the popularity of football in India. 8 new clubs are founded entirely, which are proposed for franchising and local greats decide to invest in them, such as former cricket stars Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly, Bollywood idols Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and John Abraham, powerful businessmen with huge financial resources are also included, and the Spanish Atlético Madrid, which participated in the Atlético de Kolkata project for 3 years.
The result is impressive! The first match in the history of the Indian Super League, played in 2014, was watched on television by 75 million people, and in a week the number reached 170 million. For comparison, this is 12 times more than the interest generated on the territory of the India World Cup in Brazil, held in the same year. However, this is far from all. Ratings are rising with each passing year, and the stadiums are more and more full. For example, in the 2017-18 season, the matches of Kerala Blasters FC, one of the teams in the league, were watched by an average of 31,763 spectators per match. Slowly but methodically, football started to become an obsession for Indians and the Indian Super League project to generate huge revenue.
What is the reason for this rapid success? How did Indians bypass football in a few years? It's very simple - the reason is the incredible stars who came to play football in the country. Large financial resources have attracted famous football players from all over the world, although already at an advanced age. In the last 4 years, top players such as Alessandro Del Piero, Nicolas Anelka, Elano, Robert Pirès, David Trezeguet, David James, Joan Capdevila, Dimitar Berbatov, Freddie Ljungberg, Wes Brown, Robbie Keane have received a visa to India. Ah, agree, even at the end of their career, these footballers can create masterpieces with the ball at their feet, which would make even the most unenlightened in the game of football swoon. Well, the Indians fell for them. Del Piero, for example, was greeted by thousands at New Delhi airport when he arrived to start his journey in India.
The curious fact is that the traditional clubs in the country, those that have a long history, continue to play in their championship and produce a champion. However, the interest in them is much less than in the newly created clubs and their super league.
The Indian Super League runs from November to March, so if you're planning a trip to India at this time of year, you might as well enjoy a local football match. Yes, until recently this would have sounded strange, but now there is certainly something to see. If you are still not convinced, let's list the names of some of the coaches who worked in the league in the last year - Teddy Sheringham, René Meulensteen, Zico, Steve Coppell, Avram Grant. Specialists who know the smallest details of the trade and would be useful to any country with their vast experience in football.
All this led to the fact that the level of football in India and, respectively, of the national team of the country noticeably went up. Local footballers have the opportunity to touch incredible professionals and learn the ins and outs of the game from them. At the moment, the "blue tigers", as the Indian national team is called, is already in 97th place in the world. Well, it's not that far ahead, but you can't deny that it's better than the 173 for example. That's where they were in 2015. Also, last 2017, the team went undefeated in an international match and managed to qualify for next year's AFC Asian Cup, which will be held in the United Arab Emirates.
These achievements would hardly have been possible without the Indian Super League project, which proved that football at a good level can also be played in India. Who knows, maybe in another year the "blue tigers" will reach the coveted World Cup.