The Blue Tigers drew yet again as they were held by a strong and motivated Malaysia team on the 18th of November, Monday at the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad. This was their fifth draw this year.
The Indians lined up in a 4-3-3 formation with Gurpreet in goal; Jhinghan, Rahul Bheke, Anwar Ali, Roshan in defence; Brandon, Suresh and Apuia commanding the midfield while Yadwad, Farukh and Chhangte led the attack.
It was a much anticipated clash as it has been seen that these two teams have always offered an exciting contest while playing against each other.The head to head stat also speaks the same with both teams having faced each other 32 times with each winning 12 and drawing 8.
Malaysia are under scrutiny as many football fans and experts have criticised them of importing players from foreign nations with faint Malaysian roots over prioritising development of local players and investing in grassroots infrastructure.
First Half: Highs and Low
How many times have we seen him do that? 🙌@RahulBheke ⚡#INDMAS #IndianFootball ⚽ pic.twitter.com/6sytqxFmOe
— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) November 18, 2024
The match started with the Malaysians building up their gameplay from the back. The confidence that they had gained from their recent success was clearly reflecting on their gameplay and body language.The tigers were having a good run of possession play in the 12th minute.
Taking advantage of the positive run of play, Bheke tried to play a through to Farukh but failed to pace it correctly and thus it went for a goal kick. India had yet another scoring chance as Farukh laid a ball off to Roshan who whipped a cross to Irfan who just missed it by a fraction.
And just as things were looking in control for the Indians, Gurpreet made an absolute shambolic mistake in the 19th minute as he came way forward to grab hold of a Malaysian clearance but he failed to capture it.
Paulo Josue made the most of this mistake and scored an easy goal, thus giving the visitors a crucial lead. The urgency of equalising made India desperate to score.Farukh, Brandon, Chhangte were constantly knocking on the Malaysian defence. The much awaited goal came in the 39th minute from a corner via a Rahul Bheke header. The Blue Tigers were right back into the game.
Second Half: A Moral Victory
The #BlueTigers 🐯 🇮🇳 end the year with a draw against Malaysia 🇲🇾#INDMAS ⚔️ #IndianFootball ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/BErVHFsn4K
— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) November 19, 2024
The 2nd half began with the Indians continuing their high tempo play but that soon faded away. It seemed as if they had run out of gas.Malaysia on the other hand tried to create something via Aguero and Azmi but were not clinical in the final third.
The Indian National Team have not registered a single win this year. This is the 1st time since 2006 that India have ended a calendar year winless.The change of manager has also not yielded any worthwhile result. Chhetri's retirement has also left us without a proper number 9 which is a matter of great concern. Besides these, schoolboy errors from experienced players like Gurpreet have also been costly.
Though India's performance against Malaysia was their best among their last 3-4 matches, the results have not improved very much. Manolo Marquez has done a great job thus far with his radical changes to the lineup and putting his faith on youngsters, especially in attack.
Malaysia, even with multiple naturalised players looked brunt in front of the Indian midfield and defense whereas the Indians could have even won the game if they had got lucky with their close calls. This really does bring back the debate what benefit did Malaysia get after failing its locals and instead glory hunting for temporary results by relying on the retributions from players having a weak Malaysian heritage.
The Debate on Naturalisation
Stimac🎙: “𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘐𝘖/𝘖𝘊𝘐, 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵. 𝘐𝘵'𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳𝘴.”… pic.twitter.com/7n7Mj2NB5q
— IFTWC - Indian Football (@IFTWC) June 21, 2024
However, it needs must be understood that there was a time when Players of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizens of India could indeed represent India in Sports but the privilege was taken away in 2008, with one Sports Ministry official being quoted that "... the honour of representing the country should not be given to a foreign citizen."
Convincing the government to bring back the allowance needs calls from a significant portion of the population, but the lack of awareness coupled with the sheer unpopularity of Indian Football and the relative apathy of Government institutions towards the sport makes it a near impossible job.
Such major changes in India doesn't happen without intense ground protests and National level media coverage, but do Indian Football fans have the numbers and motivation to do so?
Congratulations to 4️⃣ #BlueTigers who made their India debut last night 💙🇮🇳
— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) November 19, 2024
Irfan Yadwad
Hmingthanmawia Ralte
Jithin MS
Vibin Mohanan#IndianFootball ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/fSpE4ZErqZ
This brings us to the final point of whether the temporary success with OCI/PIOs will become an excuse for the authorities to completely neglect major investments into grassroots.
Not that there is any currently, but in such a scenario, the calls for the same would probably be significantly diluted as fans would be happy with the results at the cost of further neglect to the Indians who were born and stayed all their lives in the soil only for the OCIs/PIOs who had the privilege of a better quality of football education.
This is where the debate lies; a lot of ifs, buts and maybes divide the Indian football fraternity into two on this issue of whether the Indian diaspora should be allowed to don the Indian jersey and the culminations of the same.
Till then, we fans need to accept the reality of the situation and continue to pray that our current bunch can build up on these improvements and hand us that long awaited victory.
