Indian Football: Interview with Rob Baan

Interview conducted by Total Football:

Part 1-

Talking Points:

•  Rob says the first step is to improve football at the grassroots level. They are focusing on training coaches, training referees, raise the level of the I-league to give birth to more Indian football icons. 
• They are looking for a style of play which suits the Indian footballing culture. They want to focus on more skills and a passing game instead of the long ball style which usually suits large players. 
• The club culture is missing in India and he thinks it needs to be developed. 
• I-League players make good income so Indian parents should encourage kids who want to take up football as a career. 

Part 2-

Talking Points:

• We are not on track in achieving the goal of making it to the 2022 World Cup mainly because the organization is financially strapped, the government needs to encourage a sporting culture in the country and more money needs to be assigned for sports development.
• Due to the social media, kids now a days are paying attention to all that happens in world football. They pay attention to the European clubs, the South American clubs, the Asian clubs and are big football fans in general. They are fans off the field but he urges the kids to become fans on the field.
• The governments in Japan and Korea built a lot of infrastructure and developed the game at the grassroots level by introducing very good coaching, referee education and etc. 
• For example, Japan has 3000 UEFA A license coaches while India has 50 of them. It is all a numbers game, Japan is a much smaller country than India but they have 60 times as many A licensed coaches compared to India. 
• If India gets to host the U-17 World Cup in 2017 it will be a huge boost for the game in the country. 
• We have 3 AIFF academies and our goal should be to have at least 8 total in different regions. If the government provides more money they could reach their goal of having 8 academies.  

Part 3:

Talking Points:

• Our players lack technique. The physicality of the kids can be changed quickly but the technique takes time. 
• The best characteristic of the Indian players is that they have a great ability to concentrate and they have a focused attitude. They listen to the coaches and they want to win. 
• The clubs from abroad are setting up academies in India but they are only doing it to make money. They aren't bringing money into the country to develop kids. The foreign clubs are renting up the artificial turfs in the country and the AIFF doesn't have the facilities needed to train their own academy kids. The foreign clubs have enormous know how and they could help India very much, but their operations are not helping at the moment. 
• With the little money the AIFF has they are using it appropriately to invest in technology for training purposes. 
• Age cheating is a big issue in India. They are doing their best to get rid of that practice because it works against the development of the game. 
• India is behind in regards to football, we can't even compete in Asia. We need to invest more to progress. 
• The good thing is that there are more parents who are encouraging kids to play football. 

P.T Usha's dream for Tintu, Jessy and Shaharbana

P.T Usha, the former athlete who won four gold medals at the Asian games and lost out on winning an Olympic bronze by a hair line, set up the P.T Usha School Of Athletics in Koyilandy, Kerala. She scouts gifted girls from the Southwest region of India and recruits them to train them to be the best runners of India.

There are about a dozen athletes whom Usha is currently training, out of which one of them already won a bronze at the Asian Games (Track & Field 800 m). Her name is Tintu Luka (24 years old), and she participated in the 2012 London Olympics for the 800 meters but fell short in winning a medal. She is still young for the sport of running and she has about 10 more years if she stays healthy.

Tintu Luka at the 2010 Commonwealth games, Delhi

According to consensus there are two more athletes much younger than Tintu in Usha's camp who are performing at a high level for their age. Jessy Joseph who is 18 years old, and Shaharbana Sidhique who is 16 years old are said to be performing really well.

Here are the personal best competition times for the three ladies and I wanted to compare their times with competition times of the best athletes of their age in the U.S.

Tintu Luka:

Tintu Luka	Nachelle Mackie  (2012 NCAA 800m champ)
Age : 24 years	Age: 22 years old (approximately)
Main Event: 800 meters	Main Event: 800 meters
Personal Best-  1:59:17	Personal Best- 2:01:06

If you look at how Tintu compares with the best NCAA (U.S college) 800 m runner for 2012, she is actually doing better in comparison and it is important to admire her for her achievement. Keep in mind that Tintu achieved her personal best at the age of 22 years old, that is the reason why I compared her to a 22 year old. Runners usually hit their prime running age after the age of 25 years old, and it is reasonable to assume that the best running days of Tintu are ahead of her. Improvements in running occur in a very progressive manner, and Usha certainly trains Tintu in a very conservative way by taking her in systematic progressions to beat her prior goals. 

Jessy Joseph:

Jessy Joesph	Hanna Meier (2013 Best high school 800 m runner)
Age: 17 years	Age: 17-18 years old
Main Event: 800 meters	Main Event: 800 meters
Personal Best-  2:09:39	Personal Best: 2:06:35

The best high school 800 m runner from the U.S in 2013 has a Personal Best which is about 3 seconds better than Jessy's Personal Best. It is a pretty big difference compared to the best US runner, but Jessy's personal best falls almost within the top 10 runners' time in the U.S high schools. So it is still a pretty impressive achievement. She is still super young and in the next five years if she works very hard she will certainly catch up to the best of the world. 

                                            Jessy Joseph before racing in Chennai in 2012

Shaharbana Sidhique:

Shaharbana Sidhique	Nia Donner (2013 Best High School 400m runner)
Age: 16 years	Age: 17-18 years
Main Event: 400 meters	Main Event: 400 meters
Personal Best-  57:31	Personal Best- 53:00

The best high school 400 m runner from the U.S in 2013 has a Personal Best which is about 4.5 seconds better than Shaharbana's Personal Best. I couldn't find a runner who was exactly 16 years to compare with, but we still get an idea of how Shaharbana compares with the best runner who is a bit older than her. I am sure over the next two years she will improve her time and we will be able to do a better comparison.

                                         Shaharbana is the person on the far left (no. 348)

The amazing work Usha and her athletes are doing:

These athletes have achieved all their personal bests while they didn't even have a synthetic track to train on. They didn't have the world class facilities nor did they have the best diet growing up, in fact Usha stated in interviews that Tintu's height and weight were that of a malnourished child before she was scouted by Usha. When you look at what they have to train with, where they have come from and what they are achieving it is amazing what they are achieving. They do have Usha by their side, she is a coach who really cares about their well being and takes care of them. Just for the fact that they have a coach like Usha, they do have to consider themselves partly lucky.

An interview of P.T Usha by SAP in 2011:

Part 1: Beware of the loud techno music at the beginning...

Part 2: 

Part 3:

Part 4: 

India's Team and Individual Sports Rankings

Indian Team Sports Ranking             World Rank                                     Date: 6/18/13

1. Test Cricket                                     3rd 
2. One Day International Cricket            1st
3. Twenty20                                         3rd
4. Tennis Davis Cup                             26th
5. Men's Football (Soccer)                    147th
6. Women's Football (Soccer)               51nd
7. Men's Basketball                              58th
8. Women's Basketball                         40th
9. Boys Basketball                               43rd
10. Girls Basketball                                39th
11. Men's Volleyball                                30th 
12. Women's Volleyball                           103rd
13. Junior Boys Volleyball                       16th 
14. Junior Girls Volleyball                        29th
15. Men's Rugby                                    74th
16. Men's Field Hockey                          11th
17. Women's Field Hockey                     12th

Individual Sports ranking:

Men's Single's Tennis: India's Top 3            World Rank

1. Somdev Devvarman                                     135th
2. Saketh Myeni                                             279th
3. Prakash Amritraj                                         312th

   

   

Men's Double's Tennis: India's Top 3          World Rank

1. Mahesh Bhupati                                           7th
2. Rohan Bopanna                                           10th
3. Leander Paes                                              11th

   

Women's Single's Tennis: India's Top 3        World Rank

1. Ankita Raina                                               362nd
2. Rishika Sunkara                                          531st                                                  
3. Prerna Bhambri                                           541st

   

Women's Double's Tennis: India's Top 3      World Rank

1. Sania Mirza                                                 15th
2. Rishika Sunkara                                           408th 
3. Kyra Shroff                                                   539th 

Men's Single's Badminton: India's Top 3       World Rank

1. P. Kashyap                                                   10th
2. R.M.V Gurusaidutt                                         23rd
3. Ajay Jairam                                                   25th

Men's Double's Badminton: India's Top 2      World Bank

1. Pranav Jerry Chopra                                       37th
2. Akshay Divalkar                                             37th

Women's Single's Badminton: India's Top 3     World Rank 

1. Saina Nehwal                                                  2nd
2. P.V Sindhu                                                     11th
3. Arundhati Pantawane                                       61st

Women's Double's Badminton: India's Top 2      World Rank

1. Pradnya Gadre                                                42nd
2. Ashwini Ponnappa                                           42nd

If you think there is any other sport that should be added to this, please let me know and if you could provide me the source of where I can find the rankings it will be of great help. Thank you.

Indians won 17 medals

Here is the list of medals won at the 2013 Asian Junior Wrestling Championships:

Gold Medals:
1) Mangal Kadyan (50 Kg, Men's Freestyle)
2) Pradeep Kumar (60 Kg, Men's Freestyle)
3) Sumit (96 Kg, Men's Freestyle)


Silver Medals:
1) Mamta Rani (46 Kg, Women's Freestyle)
2) Manisha Mahadev Divekar (72 Kg, Women's Freestyle)
3) Vikas (66 Kg, Men's Freestyle)
4) Pradeep Kumar (84 Kg, Men's Freestyle)
5) Mehar Singh (120 Kg, Men's Greco-Roman)


Bronze Medals:
1) Sheetal Tomar (44 Kg, Women's Freestyle)
2) Divyanshi Tyagi (51 Kg, Women's Freestyle)
3) Seema (61 Kg, Women's Freestyle)
4) Mandeep (60 Kg, Men's Freestyle)
5) Surjeet (120 Kg, Men's Freestyle)
6) Santhosh Yadav (50 Kg, Men's Greco-Roman)
7) Nitin (55 Kg, Men's Greco-Roman)
8) Prabhal Singh (84 Kg, Men's Greco-Roman)
9) Praveen Dagar (96 Kg, Men's Greco-Roman)

I combined the women's and men's categories in the medal count break up in the spirit of equality. I also listed the women ahead of men in their medal categories.

If you notice, India's Gold and Silver hauls are slanted towards the Freestyle category and less towards Greco-Roman style. That just shows that Greco-Roman style is still in the beginning stages of our wrestling culture. Over time there will be more kids who will take up Greco-Roman and we might see better performances in that area.

Also, we are trending towards getting more Bronze medals than Silver and Gold medals. That shows that at the world stage level our boys and girls will definitely be competitive but might not be guaranteed medals according to their current skill level. The gold and silver medalists definitely have a chance to win the medals at their current skill levels, and if the bronze medal winners improve going forward they will have a chance at the world stage as well.

This was the biggest haul of medals for India in this tournament. Even though it is not a world wide event this bodes well for the future of Indian wrestling because Asia usually has strong wrestling teams from Iran, South Korea, North Korea, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and many others.

This proves that India is on its way to becoming a world power in the field of wrestling. This sport should be our bread and butter in the Olympics and in tournaments in general because over history going 1000's of years back had some form of grappling as the sporting mainstay in India. We need to revive that tradition and be a top 3 wrestling country in the world.

India usually has some good Freestyle wrestlers because that suits our traditional schools in India. In the category of Greco-Roman wrestling we still have to advance a bit more. The main difference between Freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling is that in Freestyle wrestling the player is allowed to go for the legs to take the opponent down, while in the Greco-Roman wrestling they are not allowed to go for the legs for the take down. The main difference comes in with the utilization of footwork and agility in Freestyle while the Greco-Roman wrestlers have to use their upper body strength and lift/throwdown techniques.

Keep in mind though that it doesn't mean the Freestyle wrestler doesn't have upper body strength and the Greco-Roman wrestler doesn't have agility. The difference is only in the utilization of those characteristics.

Image of Mamta Rani (women's freestyle)

Note: Women only have a freestyle category in wrestling and for my knowledge doesn't have a Greco-Roman category.

The Sacramento Kings and India

Links between the Sacramento Kings and India:
While randomly doing some research on the Indian basketball scene I discovered some possibly planned (or co-incidental) links forming between the Sacramento Kings basketball organization and India.

First off, as many of you already know, the Sacramento Kings was recently bought by a group led by a prominent Indian businessman named Vivek Ranadive. He founded a couple of IT companies and was a pioneer in some areas of Information Technology. Vivek grew up in Juhu (Mumbai) and being such a crazy basketball fan, he probably has some aspirations of spreading the love for the game of basketball in India.

Vivek Ranadive

Vivek seems like the kind of person who knows what he is doing. He was a part owner of the Golden State Warriors, but he had to sell his share with the Warriors before purchasing the Kings. He has the connections and the experience related to owning a sports team, and he has his own vision of how a team should be run. Here is an article where he talks about his transformative ideas.

Another interesting link I found was that the current Indian national team's head coach Kenny Natt was an assistant coach and an interim head coach with the Sacramento Kings prior to taking the job with the Indian national team. This might be a complete co-incidence but I found it very fishy (in a good way) that these links are being formed with the Sacramento Kings and India.

Kenny Natt

I have a feeling that the NBA, just like how they made all of China fall in love with the Houston Rockets, are planning on making India fall in love with the Sacramento Kings. Watch, the next thing we will see is the Sacramento Kings drafting a player of an Indian origin. I am all for these people to people contacts between the Kings and the basketball fraternity in India as long as it helps motivate more kid in India to take up basketball as a sport.

NBA in the Indian market: 
The NBA has been busy trying to get in touch with the Indian market over the recent years. Starting with Kevin Garnett (in 2006) players like Raja Bell, Brandon Jennings, Paul Gasol, Dwight Howard and many others have visited India to garner excitement about the NBA and basketball in general. There is talk about Chris Bosh visiting India this summer.

Here is Dwight Howard in India being....himself....

Mangal Kadyan wins gold for India at the Asian Junior Wrestling Championships

Mangal Kadyan had very strong performances during the 50 KG championship bouts. He beat Chan Jun Park (South Korea) with a score of 8-0, he beat Song Hyon (North Korea) with a score of 10-2, he beat Shavkator Mukhmudjon (Uzbekistan) with a score of 9-1. In the final bout he beat Mostafa Yaghoubizeleti (Iran) with a score of 8-0. 

Besides the gold medal, India won 1 silver, and 7 bronze medals in this tournament. 

1 Silver (Boys) - Mehar Singh 

4 Bronze (Boys) - Nitin, Prabhpal Singh, Parveen Dagar, Santosh Kumar Yadav.

3 Bronze (Girls) - Sheetal Tomar, Divyanshi Tyagi, Seema. 

The country won a gold and a silver (in wrestling) at the 2012 London Olympics, and the sport has picked up popularity in India over the years. With India's wrestling history it seems only natural for India to be successful in the sport of wrestling. The wrestling fans from India are very excited about its chances with winning more wrestling medals at the 2016 Rio Olympic games. 

At the beginning of the year the International Olympic Committee decided to drop wrestling from the 2020 Olympics. It was a devastating blow for all the wrestlers and fans around the world, it was a scary decision from India's point of view because it would derail the momentum Indian wrestling has picked up over the last decade. The good news is that there is significant outrage around the world and there is a large lobby from the wrestling powers of the world which includes US, Russia, Iran and etc. The consensus is that the IOC will add wrestling back into the list by the time 2020 comes along. 

All the aspiring wrestlers shouldn't be worried, it would be prudent to stay confident that the IOC will add back wrestling into the 2020 Olympics because the Olympics will not be complete with out wrestling. I for one will boycott watching the Olympics if they exclude wrestling. What will they do next? Exclude the running and walking events from the Olympics?