Counting on Foreigners on Indian football

 Hi, how are you.

 

 I'd like to touch what's the Indian football like on this entry as long as I know so far. Maybe you could hardly imagine on how they play and what type of style they mainly show on the pitch. To be honest, I didn't know either at all till actually played here, and I have still had a lot of things to figure out to fit the incredible football into myself.  As you know, most of Indians are fond of Cricket more than football. Surprisingly, they became the champions in the last W-Cup of it for the first time in the history.

 On the other hand, the Indian football has sunk on the nearly bottom rank in FIFA ranking for ages.

 

 There is the professional league called I-league which divided into two divisions that the first division is consisted of 14 teams at the moment and second one has more than 20 teams. And every team allows tp recruit up to 3 foreigners and 1 Asian player who has a passport of any countries of Asia according to under FIFA.  And only three of them can play on the pitch at the same time, so one of them has to be on the bench in the begining of the game. As a matter of course, there is a relegation battle between those divisions at the end of the season, and the bottom two teams are suppose to drop down to the lower league from the results.

 Most of the foreigners have played in I-league recently, who are from African countries: Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana so on. They have some decisive points such as power(intensity on the ball), speed, and height that are kind of special abilities what Indian players don't have. I think this is a very reasonable reinforcement to strengthen the team at short term, but I took an impression on every team that there are no coherences and team-work as a team because most of teams just rely on them so much for wins as there is a huge gap on ability between them. That's why most of foreigners are concerned to be pushed to score in all games and put them under so much pressure all the time.

  On the other hand, I guess Indians are very unprofessional. Please let there be no misunderstanding on this point. What I'm saying is only my opinion, so of course I only know about the players of my team so that I don't know exactly about other players who belong to other teams, but they seem to be lack ambition that is a strong desire to improve them.

 For example, there is no hesitation to have snacks and junk food after training. If one of the players doesn't play the game, the one tries to abuse the coach or make some excuses for why the coach didn't sent him on the pitch... I was really sick of hearing and watching such attitudes from them.

 Anyway, I know what I have to do here now, and I don't hate competing with someone to survice because that's the reason I wanted to be a pro-player, and I clearly know it helps me a lot to iprove myself to a class as a player and as a human being.

 

 

 

  ちょっと今回は知ってる範囲でインドサッカーの話を。

 

　多分、皆さんインドのサッカーっていってもまずピン来る人はいないでしょう。笑　ここではクリケットが一番のスポーツで、前回のW杯ではなんと優勝して世界一になったって・・・。すごい！

　

　インドのプロサッカーリーグは１部と２部があり、１部は１４チーム、２部は２０チーム以上、毎年２チームが１部から２部へと降格する。その内、チームごとに外国人枠が３つと、アジア枠が１つ存在する。これはアジア国籍のパスポートを所持している選手に適用される枠。自分もこれを狙ってチームに加入することができたわけです。が、試合になると、これはあくまで登録（ベンチ入り）までの規定であり、試合にはアジア枠も外国人枠も合わせて３人までしか外国人は一緒にピッチに立てません。結局は、スタメンを勝ち取るには他の外国人たちと争わないといけないということです。

　その外国人ですが、ここインドではすべてといっていいほどアフリカ国籍、特にナイジェリアの選手が大半を占めているようです。まだまだ個人能力、戦術的にもレベルがそこまで高くないのか、助っ人外国人に頼る傾向が今まで見たどんな国のリーグよりも高い！だからアフリカ人のような特徴のはっきりする（パワー、スピード、高さなど）選手の方が、直接結果に結びつきやすいのかもしれません。本当にインド国内の選手と外国籍の選手の能力差があまりにも開きすぎているというのが個人的な感想。　「助っ人」なんで当然やけど・・。

　インド国籍の選手は、自分は今のチームしか知らないし、チーム自体がそこまで強くないから上の選手はわからないけど、レベルはお世辞にもうまいとはいえない。なのに、向上心をもって取り組んでる選手が少ない気がする。

　遠征中、自分のルームメートやった選手なんかは、練習後にお菓子をバリバリ、暇があれば彼女と電話。チーム練習外で自分で何かしてる姿なんで一切みたことないし、口を開けば監督批判。まだ若いし、良い選手なんやけど・・。　もったいない!

 

  努力する選手は残るし、しない選手はすぐに消えていくのがスポーツの世界。それはどのレベル、競技でも同じやと思うし、すべて自己責任やから他人がとやかく言うのは違うと思うけど、もうちょっとできるでしょうよ・・・。