Watching India’s Under-17 footballers, who had shown such pluck in the defeats to USA and Colombia, implode in the second half against Ghana was chastening.
After the euphoria of the first global-stage goal against Colombia, this was the harsh reality check, Impedimenta repeatedly whacking you in the face with a wet fish.
But once the pain recedes, India could do a lot worse than learn from the team that took them apart. In so many ways, the early football history of the two nations is similar. Both were once the pioneers for their continent, before spending decades in the doldrums. Ghana, who’ve always sent out excellent age-group teams, finally translated that potential into World Cup performances just over a decade ago. India have yet to reach that bridge.
India’s footballers would win the Asian Games gold on home soil in 1951, a triumph they repeated in Jakarta in 1962. Peter Thangaraj was one of Asia’s most feted goalkeepers, while Jarnail Singh was the defensive rock. Chuni Goswami, Thulsidas Balram and PK Banerjee provided attacking options second to none in Asia.
At the time, Ghana’s Black Stars were the pride of a continent just shaking off colonialism’s yoke. Winners of the African Cup of Nations in 1963 and '65, Ghana might have made a huge impact at the 1966 World Cup in England. But while North Korea, who upset Italy, and so nearly did the same to Portugal, put Asian football on the map, Ghana and 15 other African nations boycotted the event.
One of the reasons was FIFA’s readmission of apartheid South Africa in 1963. But an even bigger trigger was a blatantly unfair – some would say racist – qualification system that asked three of the qualifiers from the African zone to be part of a play-off against the Asian winners. Ghana and the rest of Africa decided they weren’t interested in jumping through multiple hoops, and the only headlines the continent made in England were courtesy Eusebio, Portugal’s Black Panther who had grown up in Mozambique.
By the 1970s, both Ghana and India were relegated to the margins of world football. In Argentina in 1978, a superbly drilled Tunisian side drew with West Germany, the defending champions, and beat Mexico 3-1. Iran, with Nasser Hejazi having taken Thangaraj’s place as Asia’s premier goalkeeper, held Scotland — conquerors of the Netherlands, eventual finalists — to a 1-1 draw.
Ghana won the Cup of Nations again in 1978 and '82, but were nowhere in the picture for World Cup qualification in the two decades that followed. Cameroon, with Roger Milla enjoying an Indian summer, delighted the neutrals at Italia '90, while Nigeria’s Super Eagles took flight in 1994. It was Senegal, under the coaching of the late, lamented Bruno Metsu, that flew the flag for Africa in 2002, even as Ghanaian success was restricted to the junior sides.
Nii Lamptey and Daniel Addo won the Golden Ball for Best Player at Under-17 World Cups in the 1990s, while Ishmael Addo finished as leading scorer in 1999, but it wasn’t until 2006 in Germany that the Black Stars finally showed up on the biggest stage. Boasting talents like Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah, Sulley Muntari and Asamoah Gyan, they reached the second round before falling to Brazil. Four years later, in South Africa, only a cynical Luis Suarez handball prevented them advancing to the semi-final.
As for India, they didn’t even bother with World Cup qualification until 1986. There was no Asian Cup appearance between 1984 and 2011, when the back-door entry offered by the AFC Challenge Cup gave fans insight into how far behind India had fallen. Asian Cup qualification for 2019 has now been clinched, with the tournament expanded to 24 teams, but it’ll only be when the Dheeraj-Jeakson-Anwar Ali-Boris generation matures that India can even begin to dream of a Ghana-like resurgence.
Credit: The Economic Times