With Fifa World Cup fever gripping the whole world, I sorely miss the Indian connection. The fact that World’s second most populous nation does not figure, even remotely, in the scheme of things is quite distressing. As per FIFA website India is ranked a lowly 133 (rankings for MAy 2010) amongst the FIFA registered nations. Was it always this bad? Did we always struggle at the bottom of the ladder while countries like Japan, China, Korea were taking the lead? A little bit of research gave the answer, and it was a resounding “NO”.
Like other British colonies, the game of football was introduced in India quite early. In fact “Mohun Bagan Athletics Club” was established in 1889 as the first professional club in India. 1950′s and 1960′s can be termed as the golden years of the Indian Football as we won two Asian Games “Gold Medals”, finished 4th in 1956 Olympics and got invited to the 1950 FIFA World Cup. However, the biggest disappointment was that we never participated in the World Cup as it turned out to be our only chance (till date) when we came even close to participate in a FIFA Football World Cup.
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