The Indian cricket team is going from strength to strength but the football squad unfortunately are not making much headway.
142 ranked India were no match for the Socceroos who cleaned up the game 4 goals to nothing.
The coach Bob Houghton however had many positive things to say.Said it was all part of a significant learning curve for his inexperiened team in their quest to improve and that they were outclassed but not disgraced.
"We played a very good team. It's not by fortune that Australia are the number one team in Asia. They're very good and a team with enormous experience.They were playing against a team that is emerging at this level so it was a difficult game for us but I thought our boys stuck to their task very well.We kept our shape, we kept our discipline, we kept going and I thought we were a little bit unlucky. I'm pleased with our boys and I think they'll improve from it and learn from it.
The vehicle that will move Indian football forward is the national team. When the national team becomes successful, I think the interest in football will follow it.
I hope that the fact that we've managed to get to the Asian Cup for the first time in nearly 30 years will encourage the government and the federation to spend money on training facilities.
In India we don't have it and you can't produce players if you have no facilities. You can't do it."
i think a key reason that football is not part of culture yet in india, and in a smaller country, but still with a lot of population, Pakistan
most of the people i know from these two countries are into cricket so much, but not at all into football
the country that puzzles me is China. It is advancing so much in all industries and emerging to become a global power, and people there loves football. however, the football team seems didn't advance yet
by the way, in 1982, it was China that should have qualified to the WC not New Zealand. Saudi team did a very lousy last game of the group against New Zealand and lost 0-5 at home. That result made China and New Zealand equal in everything and they had to play a decisive game, in which NZ won it.
in all my life, since 1982, till today, i have not seen any real development for Chinese football.