What India's football team needs to stop losing: a distinctive style and strategy

In March 2016, the Indian men’s football team defended stoically against Iran in a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier. Iran, one of Asia’s finest teams with a cultivated football tradition, were playing a team perennially muddling about in the netherworld of world rankings.

Goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh, who plays for Norwegian club Stabæk, produced a string of fine saves. However, a pointless high boot from Bikash Jairu after the half-hour mark ruined India’s fine play as Haji Safi converted the resultant penalty to break the deadlock.

Iran went on to win 4-0 and for much of the second half, India played with a ludicrous 8-1-1 formation, or so pundits and fans pointed out. The end result was not entirely unexpected.

Three days later, the Blue Tigers sank again, slumping to a 1-2 home defeat to Turkmenistan. The team lacked shape and strategy and the result was a painful indictment of English coach Stephen Constantine’s second stint.

“The results have been very disappointing,” said Syed Nayeemuddin, who captained India to the bronze medal at 1970 Asian Games. “It’s difficult to believe. Even Nepal defeated India in Guwahati [at the South Asian Games]. It’s very disappointing.”

Constantine envisioned India playing a brand of dominant, attack-minded football when he was appointed in January 2015. The Londoner’s statement immediately appeased India’s footballing constituency, especially given that his Dutch predecessor, Wim Koevermans, had failed to implement an imposing game.

Constantine, 53, had previously coached India from 2002 to 2005. The Blue Tigers were a commendable outfit then, winning the LG Cup in 2002 and finishing runners-up at the 2003 Afro-Asian Games. Constantine improved India’s position on the football world rankings incrementally, taking the team from a lowly 168th to a more respectable 129th in that period.

A spell of bad results

However, Constantine’s vast experience and expertise have not yielded the desired results for India over the past 14 months. India finished bottom of their World Cup qualifying group – even below Guam, a tiny US territory in the North Pacific Ocean with a population of less than two lakh. The country is now ranked 162nd globally, the same as Guam.

The away game to Guam was the campaign’s nadir. The Blue Tigers farcically folded to goals from Travis Nicklaw, a sophomore from San Diego State University, and Brandon McDonald, a defender without a club.

“We are disappointed,” said Constantine, the Indian coach, at the post-match Press Conference. “Today the difference was very much visible between a group of players who have the best football education and the rest. Seventy-five percent of the players who represented Guam have been born and brought up in the US, and that made a huge difference.”

Constantine’s assessment was accurate at the time and indicative of the Indian national team’s precarious position, stuck in a lateral stasis of underdevelopment. India lacked quality and were far from fostering an identity of their own, so irrefutably highlighted again in the recent defeats to Iran and Turkmenistan.

Does India have its own style?

Football is often discussed in terms of identity and national style. The Dutch played Total Football in the 1970s, spearheaded by the late Johan Cruyff. Italy developed Catenaccio, excelling in the art of fine defending. Spain nurtured Tiki-taka, a great interchangeability between players and a neat exercise in geometry, while Brazil continue to muse about individual players’ self-expression. As for India today, the Blue Tigers still don’t have a category of their own.

“India had a distinctive football identity,” said Novy Kapadia, one of India’s leading football experts. “From 1956 to 1962, India were the best in Asia and called the ‘Brazil of Asia’ because they played skilful short-passing football, with the focus on body swerves and dribbling.”

“We had very skilful and intelligent players,” echoed Nayeemuddin, who played for India from 1964 to 1971. “There was self-respect and motivation. We understood what national duty was. Our coach and guru Syed Rahim was great. You have to follow some golden rules. At the under-19 level, he told us to pass the ball under pressure to our own midfielders. You had to keep open all options and try to go forward – no back pass, no square pass. Football is forward-moving.”

According to Kapadia, India surrendered their football identity by bowing to the wishes of every foreign coach. The numbers back up his claim. Since the 1980s, nine of India’s coaches (out of 16) have been foreigners. From Serbian Milovan Ćirić to Jiří Pešek of the Czech Republic, they have all brought their own philosophy and style, but contributed neither to a sustained stability nor a well-developed identity.

“Indian coaches, with knowledge and qualifications, should coach India,” said Nayeemuddin, corroborating Kapadia’s point. “They should get facilities, respect and plan long-term. When I was a coach, I couldn’t even go on an exposure trip.”

Nayeemuddin was a precocious talent during his playing days and a stoic coach, with an almost obstinate adherence to his principles and philosophy. He had several stints with relative success as head coach of India.

Learning from Europe

In Europe, several leading nations reengineered their footballing identity from the youth and grassroots level up after defeats of seminal significance. Spain reshaped both their style and tactics after a 3-2 humiliation by Nigeria at the 1998 World Cup. Eventually, the Spanish armada won the European championship in 2008.

When Jurgen Klinsmann and Joachim Low took charge after a group stage exit at Euro 2004, Germany repudiated defensive solidity and organised build-ups from the back for a more holistic and modern philosophy. A decade later, they won the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Both the Spanish and German overhaul spanned at least a decade, but culminated in a victorious renaissance. France and Belgium followed a similar blueprint.

“India needs to plan a two-decade-long cycle,” said Kapadia. “However, sponsors, investors, and fans are impatient and keep talking about the World Cup. We should aim to improve in Asia. Also, youth development is only given lip service in Indian football. Age group football in India is full of fraudulent players masquerading as youngsters. The game has not spread all over the country. It is only played in pockets. Hence, international results are poor.”

In Asia, countries like Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Australia have brought in Belgian technical directors to revolutionise their football, starting, first and foremost, at the youth level. Belgium’s decade-long football transformation has propelled the country to the top echelons of the world rankings and earned them the favourites tag at this summer’s European championships in France. The Belgians achieved success based on a 4-3-3 field formation.

“In terms of the youth teams, we are trying to implement a style of play where we build up from the goalkeeper when possible, where players are comfortable on the ball and we can play attacking football,” said All India Football Federation’s technical director Scott O’Donell in an e-mail. O’Donell is responsible, nationwide, for academies and youth development, coach education, the grassroots and women’s football.

“At the youth level, we are focusing on playing 4-3-3 or variations on 4-3-3,” he said. “Having said that, the players in our academies need to be exposed to playing (and against) different formations. So by the time they leave our academies, they should be comfortable not only playing 4-3-3 but also 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 and variations on these. They also need to be comfortable playing against these different formations.”

O’Donell’s bottom-up approach should allow India to play with a more distinctive style and identity in the future – the ultimate goal of Lakshya, a voluminous document on the football federation’s website drafted by O’Donnell’s predecessor Rob Baan. The document propagates “a typical Indian style of play, without copying any other country”.

“Rob Baan’s influence on the development of Indian football is still there,” confirmed O’Donell. “His mandate was to outline a road map for the future of Indian football. He has done that. We now have to implement the plan."