Football Fever

19^th FIFA world cup is here (I am not writing this from South Africa unfortunately-, but I am intending to say the World cup has arrived). One month of football extravaganza (this can truly be called an extravaganza, unlike few other tournaments.. hic.. hic). We have seen IPL and surrounding dramatics, but this is a different level all together.

Coffee shops, pubs, roadside restaurants all have TV sets (different sized though). Its on TV (not the mention the live relay, but all news channels cant talk anything else), its on radio (you have to hear the bullshit they talk, wonder how many of them actually watch football). It’s a part of tea time, lunch time discussions (morons without any sporting interests or knowledge update themselves in order avoid being the dumb one of the group).

One such discussion involved me (I can confidently say that I am not among the morons mentioned above). This was over a cup of tea (most of my discussions happen over a cup of tea; hence they are spiritless discussions- dull & boring). While there were many others, this discussion mainly involved me & another guy (who also doesn’t happen to be one of the above mentioned morons).

We went on ‘oh did you see that match’, ‘what a goal’, ‘I am waiting to see this match’, blah, blah, bleh, bleh, bloo.. This then landed at ‘it’s a pity India is not in world cup or we could have dramatized it like the IPL’. (True fact, we would then have post match parties, where winners & losers would together give a ‘spirited’ performance).

This is when he landed a straight punch on my nose, ‘India has qualified for world cup once’. My mind said.. ’Whoa, WTF (sorry for the language, but that straight punch was too much for me to take and the shock brought out these words), hold on boss “India & football world cup” what nonsense are you talking about”. This is one of those situations, which puts an individual at a fix. It came out of nowhere and hit me like a bolt. Who can think of India in football world cup (don’t we suck at hockey, which is our national game)? For a moment, I wanted to tell this guy to cock up, no more jokes. But then this could be true too. A sudden thought flashed through my mind, ‘Am I appearing like a moron’ (like the ones mentioned above)?

I decided to be honest, ‘no sir, never heard of it’, ‘but seriously are you sure?’, ‘how could such a travesty have happened?’ He couldn’t give any further details.

My questions remained questions… I am sparing all you babies the trouble of looking dumbstruck on this topic. Here’s what I could dig out.

India qualified by default for the 1950 FIFA World Cup finals as a result of the withdrawal of all of their scheduled opponents. But the governing body AIFF (All India football federation) decided against going to the World Cup, being unable to understand the importance of the event at that time (this is another WTF moment, sorry couldn’t resist). Reason shown by AIFF was that there was not enough practice time along with selection problems although FIFA agreed to bear a major part of the travel expenses.

The myth is still there that Indian refused to play because they were not allowed to play barefoot but according to the then Indian Captain Shailen Manna, this was not the actual case and just a story to cover up the disastrous decision of the AIFF. The team has never since come close to qualifying for the World Cup.

Some more details

First international match: France 2 - 1 India, (London, England; July 31, 1948)

Biggest win: India 7 - 1 Ceylon (Then Srilanka), (Bangalore, India; December 16, 1963)

Biggest defeat: USSR 11 - 1 India, (Moscow, USSR; September 16, 1955)

FIFA ranking: 133 (current)

Highest FIFA ranking: 94 (February 1996)

Lowest FIFA ranking: 165 (March 2007)