Ignorant Football Fans in India Need to Rise

I still remember the morning of 28^th April 2011 when all my friends who were Real Madrid and Barcelona fans were in a tussle on Twitter, Facebook and all social platforms available, all this cause of the sending off of the Madrid central defender Pepe when he had actually not touched Dani Alves. And the social football fight was also there on 7^th May 2009 when Barcelona knocked out Chelsea with Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo disallowing many of the penalty chances that Chelsea should have actually got with Ballack and Drogba leading the race to shout at the ref. But on 24^th of July 2011 everything was all cool why should there be any issue, no EPL no La Liga no SerieA so just for my so called football loving friends to know on 23^rd July 2011 UAE defeated India 3-0 in the first leg of the World Cup qualifiers.

Oh please don’t stress your head thinking why is this Jughead making such a hue and cry about a loss as it keeps happening in sports. I am making this hue and cry because India ended the match with only 9 men in blues on the field, with Red card being awarded to Debabrata Roy and Subrata Pal when there wasn’t much of a physical contact in any of the two situations which led to the penalties and also the red cards. Now where are the Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea fans gone come on how can you be a club faithful if you are not even close to being a country faithful?  Every player in the world says and feels there is no better feeling than playing for your national team. Please a humble request don’t start with the age old topic that Indian football is not that great come on how can it be great when their own countries football supporters have no idea about what they are going through.

The referee in that match was Banjar Al Dosari who is from Qatar, just asking the FIFA committee what were they actually thinking when they knew India were suppose to play Qatar before the qualifiers why designate Dosari to take control of the match. Me being very neutral follower of football won’t comment anything more on this but would surely want to bring your attention on to the two Red card situations.

Debabrata Roy Red Card

One of the UAE midfielder sent in a cross which was met by a deflection and was falling in the path of the UAE striker with Roy only chasing him and Subrata Pal in total control to snatch the ball from the air but then the Striker came tumbling down holding his ankle with there being no physical contact from Roy only a defensive pressure. What next? Debabrata was given his marching orders.

Subrata Pal Red Card

Considered to be one the highly experienced and talented shot stoppers in Asian sub continent especially due to his Spiderman style reflexive saves. Almost same situation as the first one the ball crossed in the box and the ball being in the reach of the Indian keeper he jumped caught the ball took a step and raised his knees to his abdomen as all keeper do which is very normal. And with the striker charging towards him Subrata just brushed the UAE striker on the side ribs and the striker who had a good course in play acting and loved the lush green turf started to roll on the lush green turf which I would say surely deserved a yellow card. But Subrata’s past reputation (Junior Incident) came to haunt him and was shown the red card.

Has anyone got any reason that would speak in favor of the mockery made by the referee of the beautiful game? But surely everyone would want to congratulate our coach Armando Colaco who has done a great job with his side, even after being nine men down for most of the match we played much much better than 11 men under Houghton. We were passing well, we were trying to attack and we played as a unit, what more can you expect 9 men to do against 12 men (ref included). We displayed courage, talent and passion to win.

Now my question comes back to all the readers where were all the football followers in India when this was happening why were there no fights on the social network forums? Where had your football following spirit disappeared? If this sought of situation would have happened in cricket I’ll tell you what all would have happened:

• A group would have been made on Facebook say “BAN DOSARI” with 1 million followers

• May be a Candle march may be at India gate

• Or if it was a very critical situation say with respect to a match with Pakistan there would have been a massive discussion in parliament with bats and wickets been thrown around.

But in this case what happened NOTHING. For everyone who says India is not a footballing nation but a cricketing nation wouldn’t it be better if we would be known as Sports Nation of the world. If I take the first red card scenario and compare it with Puyol doing the same my Catalan supporter friends would have had the FB status “Puyol was at his amazing best but the ref was biased” and as for Pal’s situation if Casillas would have got red carded my Castilian supporter friends would have had the status “Dosari has no idea what goalkeeping is all about”. Come on guys I know Indian football still needs to develop a lot but come on show some respect, trust and support in your national team Climax holds same importance to Indian football as Dhoni does to Indian cricket.

“THESE ARE MY VIEWS ALONE”

Check the Red card incident and fan’s opinions on that : Click here

Also check out the following fan discussions:

Rematch India vs UAE 1st Leg

FIFA World Cup 2014 Qualifiers

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