EM Sports Desk
THE Indian super league (ISL) has thrown up plenty of surprises, heartbreaks, and triumphs and generated the right amount of noise amongst the followers of the beautiful game. For a sport like football which has long languished in the shadows of cricket, in India, the ISL was something that was due, given that there were similar such leagues designed for a lot of the other sports in India. The ISL was fast-paced, adrenaline packed and a melange of big names and there was little surprise that the sport finally managed to pull in a huge number of viewers – both loyalists as well as newcomers and gave it its long awaited due.
“India is a sleeping giant.” The former FIFA president Sepp Blatter said this in 2012 about the situation of football in India and the country’s desperate attempts to promote the game. After two years of that statement, India finally woke up to football. The birth of franchise-based league called the Indian Super League finally happened. It was formed with a vision to enable India to participate in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Stadiums in Goa, Chennai and Guwahati were jam-packed, every game was closely followed and the league clearly made an impact on the number of football viewers in India. The marquee players were the reason a lot of people were drawn in and as the competition went on, each team's fan base grew, more and more people following the ISL with each passing day.
Attentions were grabbed immediately, as memorable moments were played out. A case in point being the final game of the 2nd edition of Indian Super League, when Mohammed Rafique in the dying seconds of the final scored for Atlético de Kolkata, in what is now the fourth highest attended league in the world. ISL is now bigger than France, than Italy, than Brazil, than Argentina and China – countries that have an established football tradition.
Cricket is no longer the only sport in the eyes of many. The players themselves will get a definite boost in terms of experience after having the chance to learn from players who once dominated the world scene. Even in the eyes of the world, India grew a little as a footballing nation.
Even Mark Zuckerberg in January 29, 2016 shared an update about Indian Super league on the community's progress to connect the world. "In 2015 people came together in many different ways on Facebook. We celebrated happy moments, from the Indian Super League to the release of Star Wars," Zuckerberg stated.
The ISL has helped the Northeast footballers to showcase their talents to the world and helped the players to make a career out of football, a step for younger generation to dream on. Northeast players like Jeje Lalpekhlua, Sanju Pradhan, Jackichand Singh has made their mark in the ISL and also prove an asset to Indian football team as well. The official Facebook page for Northeast United has now 245,654 followers which is a huge turnout for Northeast region.
Sanju Pradhan, a 26-year-old player from Sikkim who made his India debut in 2012, in an interview with Times of India speaks about how ISL has catapulted his talent and playing with foreign players has helped him to grow.
Sanju also said that India need to focus more on the junior level than on the seniors to take the changes in the right direction if India was to play in the World Cup. “The need is to focus on the grass-root and junior levels”.
Speaking on his journey he maintained that during the academy days, he didn’t get the facilities needed at the right time and regrets that India could have gone even further with proper facilities.
“I have worked hard, my parents couldn't provide all I needed but I kept on working and now I am happy. The struggle I faced in the initial stages is paying off in my professional life now. As a sportsperson, I would say that hard works always pays off. I would suggest to the next generation that if they keep on working, it will pay off for sure”.
Sanju was an integral part of NEUFC's campaign last season and played a big role in taking the team to a creditable fifth position from a bottom-placed finish in 2014.
Former Barcelona, Juventus and AC Milan defender Gianluca Zambrotta, head coach of Delhi Dynamos in an interview with goal.com mentions about India and the reason behind coming back to India for third edition. “India is a football nation that wants to grow a lot. It wants to become big in the next few years. So, which country could have been better for me to come to in order to grow together? I believe that this is the best team in India. It's the team of the capital, which India represents. It was the obvious choice.”
The ISL has managed to recapture the imagination of football fans and effect a dramatic turnaround in it, shattering old biases. Football had largely become a sofa sport in India – fans sitting at home watching and debating about European leagues rather than going out to watch Indian players. ISL, however, managed to turn these couch potatoes into stadium-goers.
ISL has a long way to go but the league has encouraged a lot of people to start dreaming about playing football as a career.
