Breaking point — A closer look at what's going wrong with Indian football

The Hindu

4 hours ago

When the full-time whistle blew at the Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong, China, the Indian football team stood frozen — hapless and defeated.
A team that India had hammered for four goals without reply in their previous clash just beat the Blue Tigers 1–0 — another loss for India to a lower-ranked opponent (26 spots) and the first loss to Hong Kong in a competitive fixture since 1993.
The men's football team — and the state of Indian football — remain in tatters. India could no longer afford to put a foot wrong in its next four matches if it wanted to qualify for the 2027 Asian Cup.
But where did it all go wrong for the national team? The lion's share of blame has typically fallen on head coach Manolo Marquez.
'Yeah, there have been mistakes by the coach. When you are playing a new opponent — how they could play, whether they will attack or defend — these are things a coach should explain to his players well,' Subrata Bhattacharya, former India defender, tells Sportstar.
'I think that communication and general coordination among players were missing. As a result, every player played their individual game.'
Marquez, who won the Indian Super League (ISL) — India's top flight — title with Hyderabad FC, took charge of the team after Igor Stimac was shown the door in June last year, following a poor showing at the 2023 Asian Cup and an early exit from the World Cup qualifiers.
Failure to break the duck: India has yet to win a competitive match under head coach Manolo Marquez. | Photo Credit: AIFF Media
But in the year since he has taken charge, India has won just one match in eight — an international friendly against the Maldives.
'If you look at it, the entire team — on and off the ground — has been in a mess,' Bhaichung Bhutia, former India striker and captain, adds.
'I think it is time for Kalyan Chaubey (president of the All India Football Federation [AIFF]) to step down as president. Even the coach, Manolo (Marquez), looks to be stepping down soon. And this guy (Kalyan) bypassed the entire technical committee (to select the coach).'
'In that Executive Committee meeting, I had protested that the coach can't be selected by the president. There has to be a thorough discussion.'
A systemic failure: Bhaichung Bhutia, former India striker and captain, feels the mess in Indian football iis both on and off the field. | Photo Credit: Rajeev Bhatt/The Hindu
'Obviously, Manolo is a great coach, but if the technical committee had sat with him and spoken about the plans and ideas, rather than just bypassing and forcing everybody in the ExCo committee to accept it…' Bhutia added.
'Then there have been three general secretaries (Shaji Prabhakaran, Anilkumar Prabhakaran and M. Satyanarayan) in two-and-a-half years under Chaubey. I think things are quite bad when you offer USD 50,000 for a win.'
Lack of enough international games
Cash incentives have hardly led to encouraging results for the national team. In 2006, the men's team was promised one lakh rupees should it beat Japan, ranked 100 spots above it, and Rs. 50,000 for a draw.
Hong Kong, meanwhile, is a side ranked 26 spots below India. India lost on both occasions: 0–6 to Japan and 0–1 to Hong Kong.
Could that money be invested to arrange more international games? Perhaps.
'The main problem for our boys is that we don't play enough international matches. That helps in gauging the speed, technical ability and level of our players against international competitors, especially those from Asia,' Subrata adds.
In the past year, Argentina, the best-ranked team and the world champion, played 18 games. Qatar, the Asian champion, played 15, while Uzbekistan, the first Central Asian country to qualify for the World Cup, played 13.
India played just 10.
Compared to their own standards, the Blue Tigers played 16 matches in their build-up to the Asian Cup in one calendar year, when they entered the top 100 of FIFA rankings after five years.
As for Marquez, the damage to the team's morale after the loss was evident, but he defended his boys despite the defeat.
'The dressing room is like a funeral, practically. They know that we are not in a good moment,' Marquez told the press after the match.
'In terms of scores, it was difficult for us to score, but the team indeed played with more order than in other games. Unfortunately, we couldn't get any points here.'
Interestingly, when the two sides last met in 2022, India had opened the scoring in 55 seconds, eventually winning the match 4–0.
Three years later, the tables have turned. This was less a humiliating defeat and more a consequence of systemic failures — poor decision-making and a fractured youth development pipeline.
The age-old striker problem
India's Achilles' heel over the past decade has been the absence of an internationally proven striker — one who delivers on big occasions beyond club football.
In the last 15 years, successful forwards at the national level like Robin Singh — an I-League and Federation Cup winner with Bengaluru FC in 2014 — and Manvir Singh — with eight national trophies — have but failed to maintain consistency with the national team.
Robin scored more than one goal annually just once in his five-year international career, while Manvir, who rarely starts as a striker for his club side, has not found the net since November 2023.
'It's true that our national team has struggled to secure wins against teams such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand and Hong Kong. However, it's unrealistic to expect wins without scoring goals,' Chaubey said in a press conference on June 13.
'This clearly highlights the lack of goal-scoring abilities and shortage of effective Indian strikers. A practical, collective decision is urgently required to increase match time for the Indian strikers.'
The crisis got so dire that a 40-year-old Sunil Chhetri (above) was summoned out of international retirement.
Back against the wall: Sunil Chhetri, India's record goalscorer, came out of international retirement to help the team, earlier this year. He has yet to score in a competitive match since. | Photo Credit: AIFF Media
'We obviously appreciate Sunil Chhetri's effort of being so sincere, dedicated and fit at the age of 40, but as a nation, we also need to see the supply of more forwards.'
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Myopic scouting has compounded the issue — I-League-proven strikers have remained sidelined.
Lalrinzuala Lalbiaknia, for example, scored 27 times times for Aizawl last season and broke Chhetri's record the season before, with 15 strikes. Meanwhile, Edmund Lalrindika helped Inter Kashi finish second in the I-League this season, with five goals and as many assists.
Well done to Lalrinzuala for becoming the top scorer in the I-League this season! I'm proud of his achievement. Lalrinzuala, who is from Serchhip district and plays for Aizawl FC, has scored 15 goals in the 2023-24 season, breaking Sunil Chhetri's previous record of 14 goals. pic.twitter.com/EWuzZR6urg — Lalduhoma (@Lal_Duhoma) March 29, 2024
Lalrinzuala has yet to play for the national team, while Edmund has played 45 minutes in eight games under Marquez (below), with no game time this year so far.
On the other hand, India started Ashique Kuruniyan as a No. 9 — someone who played on the wings under former coach Stimac and primarily as a left wing-back for his club Mohun Bagan Super Giant last season.
His pace was effective, but when it mattered most — a chance against the run of play and on goal at the goalkeeper's far post — he shot it wide.
A brilliant pass and an open goal, but Ashique Kuruniyan fails to keep his shot on target 😱
India's best chance till now to break the deadlock!#HGKIND#ACQ2027#BlueTigers#IndianFootball ⚽ pic.twitter.com/cgjK1heco4 — FanCode (@FanCode) June 10, 2025
Financial disparity
Indian football remained on the short end of the stick from the Centre for its unimpressive performances outside South Asia.
Though it won three trophies at home in 2023, its funding from the Central Government fell from INR 30 crore in 2019 to INR 7.38 crore in 2023.
The same year, FIFA allotted USD 469 million for football development to its member nations, with each country receiving a minimum of USD 2 million.
The funds for India's youth development trickled down to USD 0.43 million — a mere 21.5 per cent.
A glaring difference: Under AIFF president, while India's investment in youth development has shrunk, the federation's budget has risen by 54 per cent. | Photo Credit: PTI
Meanwhile, the AIFF's budget ballooned by 54 per cent — from a budget of INR 87 crore for 2022–23, to INR 134 crore for the next financial year.
'I think the management, with Mr Chaubey in charge, is going to get even worse. He's got no clue about how to get the entire structure in line and get football completely aligned with grassroots development. I think the set-up and the structure itself are missing, and a lot of important changes have to be made,' Bhutia says.
'All hope is not lost yet. We have to focus more and more on youth development, and a turnaround is still possible,' an optimistic Subrata quips.
A notable example here would be Uzbekistan. The Central Asian nation, which was ranked just two spots above India in 2018, invested heavily in youth football, spending about USD 1.4 million a year, allotted to it through the FIFA Forward Programme, between 2016 and 2021.
Trailblazers: Uzbekistan benefitted from its investment in youth development to finally qualify for the its first-ever men's senior FIFA World Cup. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
It won the U-23 AFC Asian Cup and the U-16 CAFA Championship in 2018, then the U-19 CAFA Championship in 2022, the U-20 Asian Cup and the U-20 CAFA Championship in 2023, eventually qualifying for its first-ever senior men's World Cup.
RELATED: Rise of the White Wolves — A tale of Uzbekistan and its journey to FIFA World Cup 2026
An alternative solution
While the need to get the grassroots in order is the most plausible solution, a quick-fire remedy would be the use of Indian-origin and naturalised players.
Qatar has championed this method, winning consecutive AFC Asian Cups with the help of naturalised personnel — most importantly Almoez Ali, its top scorer in the 2019 campaign, who was born in Sudan but was naturalised in 2013.
India's last opponent, Hong Kong, has been a huge beneficiary of naturalisation, qualifying for the AFC Asian Cup after 55 years. At the tournament, it had the joint-most number of naturalised players, 14, tied with Malaysia.
Of the 23 players in its squad for the India game, 11 were naturalised, having given up the passports of their native countries to switch nationalities and obtain naturalisation in Hong Kong. Six of them constituted the starting 11.
Quality import: Stefan Pereira, who scored the winning goal for Hong Kong against India, is a naturalised Brazilian. | Photo Credit: Instagram/@stefan_pereira
Thailand, on the other hand, aggressively scouted foreign players of Thai origin in the last decade, creating a team that qualified for consecutive knockouts in the Asian Cup for the first time.
The side had players like Charyl Chappuis (born in Switzerland to a Thai mother), Elias Dolah (Thai mother, born in Sweden), and Tristan Do (born in France to a Thai father).
'The AIFF is in communication with 33 players who fall into the category of OCI. We are committed to aligning with the laws of the land and the framework of the FIFA statutes for the inclusion of OCI players in India'Kalyan Chaubey, AIFF President
For India, neither of these provisions has borne fruit because it does not permit Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) to represent the country internationally since 2008.
Also, dual citizenship is not allowed in India under the Constitution and the Citizenship Act of 1955. So, OCI and PIO cardholders must surrender their foreign passports and stay in the country for at least 12 months to apply for an Indian passport.
'I'm not sure if there is any other country that is not allowing players of their origin to represent their country,' Stimac had said during the AFC Asian Cup.
'It is a huge handicap because there are many good players of Indian origin playing in the top leagues of Europe. So it could be a huge help if we speak about bigger achievements.'
A major problem: Former India coach Igor Stimac had rued the lack of provisions to allow OCIs and PIOs to play for the Indian national team. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
If a workaround is found, footballers such as Yan Dhanda (Heart of Midlothian, Scotland), Joshua Pynadath (Dordrecht, Netherlands) and Dilan Markanday (Chesterfield, England) could get a chance to play for India.
'The AIFF is in communication with 33 players who fall into the category of OCI. Some of them have received their OCI cards, and others are in the process of attaining the same, with the assistance of the AIFF,' Chaubey said.
'We are committed to aligning with the laws of the land and the framework of the FIFA statutes for the inclusion of OCI players in India,' Chaubey added in the presser.
The chaos is not just technical — it's cultural.
'We need stories for young generations to watch and get inspired. We got it from our previous generations and from very good coaches (like PK Banerjee, Amal Dutta),' Subrata says.
'Where are such stories now? How will the motivation come?'
What's next for the future? Subrata Bhattacharya, former India defender, feels more success stories for the future generations and grassroots development are the only ways forward. | Photo Credit: Vino John/The Hindu
At the 1952 Olympics, India lost 1–10 to Czechoslovakia. It was one of the chapters that was looked down on as 'Never Again!'
The Blue Tigers achieved their best-ever finish at the next Olympic Games, finishing fourth, and then clinched gold at the 1962 Asian Games, beating Japan and South Korea in the process.
Over half a century after its golden era, Indian football now faces its darkest hour. Unless it tears down the rot and rebuilds from ruin, Indian football's legacy will become its tombstone — a shattered Parthenon, its ruins whispering of wasted potential.