India's best players get ready for a landmark tour to football's spiritual home

India's best players get ready for a landmark tour to football's spiritual home
AMINUL ISLAM

PATIALA, JULY 15: For nine months of the year, August to May, they spend Saturday evenings watching Premiership matches on television. They've looked on enviously as the players there -- Beckham, Bergkamp, Zola, Gascoigne -- have become household names in India, while they remain virtual unknowns. It must hurt, more so when they see how even average cricketers are treated here.

So the Indian football team has a chance to redress that imbalance when it sets off over the weekend on its first-ever tour of the UK. The last time an Indian football team went to the UK was in 1948, when Dr Taliremen Ao led the newly independent country's first-ever Olympic campaign in London. They aren't under any illusions about the tour's status there -- they'll be playing two second-grade sides and the Bangladesh national team -- but just going to the game's spiritual home means a lot to them.

There's been a noticeable buzz at the pre-tour camp here that's just wound up. The camp itself was different to others of its ilk; no more monotonous sessions morning and evening with precious little in between. Here, players have spent their time watching videos of the latest matches, including the Euro 2000 games. The All India Football Federation has also, for a change, managed tapes of the two English sides -- Fulham and West Bromwich Albion -- the Indians will be playing on this tour. The videos are followed by debate and discussion, opinion and analysis.

The enthusiasm apparently rubbed off on the players, too. Unlike previous camps, at which conversation usually revolved around the awful food or the pathetic accommodation, the new mantra is `homework'. Pradipda -- coach P K Banerjee -- wants his boys to eat, drink and sleep football. Much of the enthusiasm, in fact, stems from the constant chatter of the voluble, affable paterfamilias talisman of Indian football. Banerjee has seen more of football in his days as a star player and star coach than almost anyone else in the country; when he talks, the players listen, and the mood filters through.

Like I.M. Vijayan, the side's senior member. ``Fulham and West Brom are First Division clubs and definitely very tough opponents with fine players. But we will give our best'', says the man who's expected to spearhead the Indian attack in tandem with Baichung Bhutia.

Bhutia is, of course, the team's resident expert on what it's like to play in England, having completed a not-unsuccessful first season with Second Division side Bury. He's an anomaly, though, and that's the unspoken aim of this tour: To have the English watch Asian talent, which otherwise is largely unrepresented in the country. It's a long-standing grievance within the Asian community, for whom football is only slightly less important than the ubiquitous cricket. It's been the subject of an acclaimed book, Corner Flags and Cornershops, which makes the plea that Asians can be as passionate about the game as anyone else.

Passion is one thing, performance another. A conference has been organised by the nascent Indian Football Supporters' Convention to coincide with the tour; it seeks to discuss the past, present and future and where India has gone wrong. Those expected to participate include Bill Adams of the Super Soccer Academy and Corner Flags co-author Sanjiev Johal.

There are a million probable reasons for Indian football not achieving much success. There's a strong awareness among players and officials that this tour, or the next to Korea, will not change the face of Indian football. Nor will India leapfrog overnight from the dismal 115th place it occupies in the FIFA world rankings. They probably won't even be able to emulate the team of 1948, 1952 or 1956 or 1960 and play the next Olympics.

One thing is certain, though; when these boys come back, their attitude will be more positive and European football will be knocked a wee bit off its pedestal. ``The tour will help the boys learn something from their European counterparts,'' says Banerjee. Next up? An annual programme, Banerjee hopes; and then, maybe in 2020, India won't be 20th in Asia but in the top five. Maybe, too, the fans back home will be queueing up for autographs.