Over a hundred people turned up last month to watch Chennaiyin FC train at the Bangalore Football Stadium. It was dusk by the time the players wrapped up, but a good crowd still remained: aspiring footballers, older men, a father with his two children.
They gathered around Marco Materazzi as he walked off the pitch, beaming and taking endless photographs.
After what seemed like an eternity, Chennaiyin FC’s polite player-manager strode off towards the gates, only to be stopped again.
An official from the local football association hurried up, wishing to pose for one last picture. It was nearly dark, and the image turned out all grainy, but it didn’t seem to matter.
“You don’t get to meet a World Cup-winner every day,” the man grinned. “Do you?”
Excitement The excitement around the Indian Super League, Gouramangi Singh admits, is unlike anything he has known in Indian football for a long time.
“I haven’t seen such a buzz before a tournament in the last couple of decades,” Chennaiyin’s tall centre-half says. “People who have never followed football are now intrigued by the ISL.”
The ISL will take off on Sunday with one of those shiny, high-pitched, Bollywood-fuelled opening ceremonies, promising a fresh future for Indian football.
A brand new tournament, celebrity owners, a few legendary names, all backed by heavy-duty, prime-time TV: there is, it seems, a lot to be drawn to.
Yet for all its radiant promise, the ISL is a step into the unknown. Will the tournament capture the imagination of the country, the way the ProKabaddi League undeniably did?
Will it survive long-term? And how much good will it actually do Indian football?
Criticism There has been criticism too, the most strident bits aimed at the big-ticket overseas players, for being well over the hill. Materazzi, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, David James, and Luis Garcia have all come out of retirement to be a part of the ISL.
Many others have, in all but name, hung up their boots.
“Let us be realistic,” says Indranil Blah, CEO of Mumbai City FC.
“India is virgin territory for international football. We may not have a Messi or a Ronaldo, but the idea is for us to be in a position to attract more relevant talent in five-ten years’ time.”
Not all bad Truth be told, though, things are not all that bad. Alessandro del Piero was until this summer playing in Australia’s A-League, where he scored 24 goals in two seasons (and single-handedly drove up attendances).
Just this April, Mumbai City’s Manuel Friedrich was lining up for Borussia Dortmund against Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League; in May, Capdevila was still playing for Espanyol, against Osasuna in the Primera Liga; and just before the new year, Nicolas Anelka scored a double for West Bromwich Albion over West Ham.
“You can’t expect the skills of the Indian boys to improve overnight, but we are learning a lot from the foreign players,” says Gouramangi.
Pay packet There is also the not insignificant matter of the wages; players like Gouramangi, in the top bracket, stand to earn in excess of Rs.80 lakh for three months’ work. At the domestic players’ draft, a massive Rs.24 crore was spent in total.
“The ISL is not something that will go away in one year,” feels Blah.
“We have a 10-month-long grassroots programme, which was one of the many stipulations in the bid document. Enough thought has been put into it.
“We want to make a difference to Indian football.”
Where all this leaves the I-League, however, is something to ponder.
Last year, when a number of the I-League clubs were still opposed to the ISL, their owners demanded to know why similar attention was not being showered on their competition.
And no players from the domestic champion, Bengaluru FC, which includes the India captain Sunil Chhetri, will be seen in the ISL.
Co-existence “The I-League and ISL can coexist in the Indian football ecosystem,” says Shrinivas Dempo, who is in a unique position running the hugely successful I-League club Dempo SC and co-owning FC Goa in the ISL.
“For the sport to grow and gain interest domestically, we need more tournaments. It’s true that the marketing efforts of the I-League have not been on par with that of the ISL but there is time yet to make changes in that space.”
Allure As things finally get off the ground, after innumerable disputes and postponements, there is no denying that the allure of watching someone like del Piero, arguably the greatest forward to have ever come out of Italy, is immense.
Whether that is a novelty that will wear off is something only time will tell.
