The Asian Cup Blame Game

India were knocked out of the Asian Cup 2024 without scoring a goal of taking a point. So what are the reasons that the National Team underperformed and who is to blame? Which players can play at Asian Level and who is just not up to the standards required for this competition? In this episode Shruthi Nair grills Joe Morrison for his answers to these questions. Oh and apparently the best single Malt Whisky in the World comes from India, Joe and Shruthi debate the merits of this.

Transcript

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Hello, I'm Joe Morrison and welcome to Chai Football. In the studio with me is the wonderfully opinionated journalist, especially about football, and that is Shruti Nair.  Each week we bring you a no holds barred look at what's going on in the world of Indian football, along with regular invited guests from both the football landscape as well as famous fans of football from the subcontinent and beyond. 

This week on Chai Football.  There was not one Bollywood star at any of the games. No celebrities at all. No celebrities at any of the games. The pace of the game in India is too slow. But Sunil Chetri is not the problem. Yeah, no, I didn't mean that he was a problem. Talking about Sunil Chetri in any negative light is bad.

I asked if he had too much on his plate.  You've got all these billionaires who are putting every last  rupee they've got into cricket and not into their football team. 

Joseph, how are you feeling today? I know I was happy and perky the last time we did this, but now I'm not, because India seemingly hasn't performed that well, have they? So let's start with that. Are you as disappointed as we Indians are? Um, hello Shruti. Hello. Uh, yes, good to chat to you once again. Am I disappointed? 

What? On the Asian Cup performance? No, I'm not disappointed. You're not? Why? Were you expecting it? Yeah, well I said to you, didn't we, when we were chatting a couple of weeks ago before the tournament. I said I don't expect them to get out of the group stage. So, what is disappointment? Disappointment is the outcome not matching your expectation.

I mean, your life is daily disappointments, isn't it? Because your expectations are unreasonable. Where did that come from? What?  So, um We've just started the podcast. It's 20 seconds in.  So, no, I'm not disappointed because I didn't expect them to get out of the group stage. I didn't expect them to win against, uh, Australia.

Obviously, because Australia are ranked, what, 25th in the world. I think they are. Uh, I didn't expect them to beat Uzbekistan, which I think are ranked somewhere around the 70 mark, 68 in the world. Syria was the one where maybe, maybe not, um, on past performances, you might get a draw. They might, they might luck out a win.

Great. Fabulous. Right. But disappointed as in, did you expect them to lose this bad? Not a single.  No goals, no points. Um, no, I probably expected them to grab a goal at some point in the tournament if you're, if you're based on 2019, but I'm not disappointed.  Everyone else is, is got tremendous disappointment.

And it's not because I'm a bloody Britisher before you say that. Bloody Britisher. Bloody Britisher. It's not because I'm a bloody Britisher. It's, it's just simply because that was not my expectation. Now,  I'm sad,  which is different to disappointment. Why are you sad, Joe? Well, first of all, I'm sitting here with you.

Reason to be sad, yes.  So, uh, the reason I'm sad is simply, I have seen a number of the players in that team grow over this tournament. Both in training and actually in the games.  raise their level.  And the reason I'm sad is because they are now going to go back to the Indian leagues or the Indian Super League in particular, back to their respective clubs and the levels that they've attained,  those extra levels, are going to drop. 

And that's why I'm sad. Those players that we have seen can actually raise their game to, let's call it world level.  It's Asia, but let's call it world levels.  You absolutely can see that within half a dozen games within a month, those levels are going to drop again and there'll be back to the same,  uh, slow pace, slow passing, no quick thinking, no sharpness of the Indian Super League.

Right. So that's why I'm sad. Let's get into it then. Right. What went wrong? Why do you think they performed the way they performed? What were the wrong decisions that were made which then translated on field? Front foot, back foot. Momentum. English, English, English. That is English. I don't get that. Momentum.

So, um,  when was the last time you had a bad day?  Right now, as we speak. I'm with you.  No, seriously, when was the last time you had a bad day? I think it was, uh, Yeah, a couple of weeks back. Right. Now, did you find in that day that everything goes against you from the minute you wake up in the morning to the minute that you put your head on the pillow at nighttime and go back to sleep again?

It can be, you've got to queue for petrol when you don't normally have to queue for petrol. You've got to sit in traffic when normally a route to work is, is a lot freer and smoother. It can be you spill coffee on yourself. That's momentum. Yeah. Right. These guys, and I'm talking about the players, um, when they're in India, And their teams are on the front foot, i.

e. positive momentum. Oh my God, Shruti. They are world beaters. Everyone's talking about them in the same breath as Zlatan and Cristiano and he's the Indian Messi and all of that nonsense. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but my point is this. That's great when you're on the front foot and you're not under pressure and things are going for you and you're, you're smashing teams that are weaker than you,  now they've come up against real opposition,  real Asian standard players and teams, and now they're on the back foot.

So the momentum's going against them. And we have found out in the last three games and the last three weeks, who can operate under pressure. Some people can, some people can't.  You can't operate under pressure.  Can you operate under pressure? Of course I can operate under pressure. Joking aside,  are your best interviews when you're late, uh, which is pressure, puts it under pressure, when the, the, the crew maybe is, or haven't turned up on time or have done something or something's not right with microphones or your guest is problematic that you're interviewing. 

Has that been your best performances over the course of your career so far? No, I'll be honest. No, I, yeah, I would like When you're relaxed. Peaceful. Exactly. Everything's going smoothly. You know, the guest is having a good day. You put in a much better performance, probably an industry standard performance. 

That's the difference.  A number of those players, quite a number of those players have shown during this tournament they cannot perform under pressure. They cannot retain the ball under pressure. They cannot complete a pass under pressure. They cannot exert their authority, doesn't matter whether it's in defense, midfield, or attack, in particular attack, and offensively, can't do it under pressure.

So just to put it bluntly then, would you say that they are  players, or perhaps they're not players good enough to be on that stage, is that the problem? Uh, not good enough to be on the stage, well,  The answer to that particular part of the question has to be yes, because that's been proven over the last, uh, three games slash three weeks.

So are they bad players? No, of course they're not bad players. They've got technical ability, some more technical ability than others. But the difference is it's been able to show your ability under pressure. Some people can, some people can't. It's a mental game. Are you willing to take names then? Who can, who can't?

Or let's talk about who can. Um. Oh, Tapa. Ani Tapa. I mean, I've been talking,  Tapa was left out of the,  I'm just,  someone's going to fact check this for me. Tapa was left out of the final group game against Bahrain in 2019. And I think that was a massive mistake because there is the standout player who can keep the ball, hold the ball and pass the ball under the most intense pressure.

He plays in midfield. Right. So that's the positive. The negative is Manvir Singh.  Yeah, Manvir Singh, um, and I'll hold my hands up here. Manvir Singh is a superstar for his club. Bangs in goals left, right, and center.  All of a sudden plays for the national team at this level of competition. He has done absolutely nothing in offense or defense.

So, and some of his, of his fan, fanboys  and girls will argue, yes, but he was played out of position. Okay. In the last game, he wasn't played out of position. He's played in his favorite central role and he did nothing. Right. So. There's a player, who, if you watch him, and I don't know how much of the Indian Super League you watch, if you watch him in the Super League, Indian Super League, He's up here. 

He's top level.  Asian level?  Nowhere to be seen. So then that brings me to PIOs, right? We spoke about this a little bit last time when we had this chat before the Asian Cup. Do you think that could be a solution, if not the solution? It's not a silver bullet. And everyone's looking at it as a silver bullet.

Is it part of the solution? Yeah, of course it's part of the solution. Yeah, of course it's part of the solution because these players, um, have that mentality of performing under pressure.  You know that the, um, uh, who is it? There's a player. Oh, I'm trying to think of the team now. They're still in the Asian Cup.

Is it Palestine?  And he's playing in the third tier. Oh no, it's not. It's the African Cup of Nations. Sorry, I'm getting confused because there's so many games going on at the moment. There's the African Cup of Nations and the Asian Cup. There's a player playing in the African Cup of Nations. He's currently the top scorer.

His name evades me because my memory.  Do you know the name?  Is, um, uh, yeah, Google it.  Google it. Um, so, he's currently at the top scorer in the African Cup of Nations. He plays as a right back. Uh, the team will come to me in a second, his name will come to me in a second. And he's playing third  What? 

Equatorial Guinea. And he's, uh, what's his name? 

He's playing in the third tier of Spanish football. Okay. So, um, now is he a player of origin? I don't think he is, but that's digressing from your original question. But the point of the matter is players that are playing outside of India, players that, uh, have a career history of playing outside, there you have an opportunity.

Now, um, Also, you have teams both in the African Cup of Nations and in the Asian Cup who have naturalized citizens, i. e. Brazilians, with a different badge on their chest. Yeah. Yeah? And they are just romping through the tournament. So what do you want to do? Do you want to stay at 100 in the world? Yeah. So then would it mean you'll have to cut through the red tape and all of the bureaucracy and corruption and everything we spoke about last time again for that to happen?

I know, I know it's a tricky Do you think in India you're going to cut through red tape, bureaucracy and corruption and nepotism and how many other things do we want to throw in there? Yeah, you can see he's really pissed off this time, right? Like it's a, it's a different film.  Last time it was more chill and relaxed.

I'm a little scared today. It's you, it's you. I'm a little worried about this conversation. It's you that's annoying me. Okay. So you obviously do feel very passionately about this. It does look like you are disappointed, Joe. Going back to the first question. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not disappointed.

I'm sad. I'm sad. Right. So what were you expecting then? And angry. Who are you angry with? Which is different to disfigure. Who are you angry with? Who are you angry with? The world. I'm always angry at the world. Have you not noticed that in the years that you've known? Yes, I have. Yeah. And as you keep aging, you get angrier and grumpier.

That's how it is.  But who are you angry with right now? Is it the, is it the federation? Is it the coach? Is it the players? Who, who are you pissed off at? Oh, everyone's pissed. Talk to us.  It's therapy now. All right. It's not a podcast anymore. All right. Um, yeah. You want to lie down here, like on the couch.

I'll, I'll move there. It feels like therapy. Um, uh, am I being charged for this by the way? What's your, your payment? I'm the therapist. I should be charged with you. Goodness me. There's a lot of people you'd tip over the edge if you were a therapist. No, uh, put it this way. It's only been what, two days since the Syria game?

Everyone's pointing fingers at everybody else. There's a lot of blame game going on. The AIFF already, and the game is not, like I said, 48 hours old. It's not even cold yet.  Uh, I can still hear the whistle ringing in my ears. From, from the, uh, Syria game. And already the AIFF is leaking stories to the press that are, uh, what's the word,  uh, insinuation showing the coach Igor Stimac in a bad light.

I'm sure there's, there's people from the coaching side leaking stories as well. Everyone, there's this blame game going on. It doesn't change anything in that regard. So, uh, who am I pissed off with? Look,  I'll, I'll tell you.  Who am I pissed off with? Who am I pissed off with? Are you pissed off at the players?

I'm pissed off at Santa because I never got what I asked for Christmas. All right. All right. It's another kind of therapy we need for you. It's more serious. Am I pissed off at the players? Uh, maybe one or two of the players. Yeah. Um, look, everyone made mistakes in that tournament. There was players that made mistakes.

The coach and his staff made mistakes. The IFF has made mistakes. Um, I'm a big believer in the mantra, Shruti, no excuses. I think you know me well enough to know that and what I mean by that in this particular regard is the job of the football association is to put everything out there for the team and the staff of the national team to have no excuses that they cannot come back and look the administrators in the eye and say you did not provide the best environment for us to achieve what we're trying to achieve.

So no excuses. No excuses. Now, we've talked in previous episodes, haven't we, about players sleeping on airport floors and stuff like that on the way to World Cup qualifiers. That kind of nonsense. Well, that gives the players an excuse, you know. On this occasion, facilities were fabulous. Stadiums were absolutely fabulous because they're World Cup facilities. 

Training pitches, World Cup stadiums. Ow, I've got cramp.  What can we do? I must have been, have to score on those two goals last night.  Oh my God, humblebrag.  You just had to casually drop it, didn't you? Tap ins, we were tap ins.  Right place, right time. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Where was I? You've got cramp.

Oh yes, no excuses.  So on this occasion, were there any excuses? Uh, facilities were great, stadiums were great, Um, uh, everything with regards to the tournament itself, I would say,  no excuses. Prior to the tournament, Whoa, wait a second. Coach asked for a month training camp.  Did he get it? No. So now immediately you've got an excuse.

They were playing games up to the end of December.  ISL games. And the tournament started on the 12th. Or their tournament started on the, on the, sorry, their first game was the 18th of February. So, um. Was it the 18th or the 13th? So anyway, the tournament started on the 12th. So, like, that's no preparation time.

Now, some people will argue But this is an important game, isn't it, for them, the Asia Cup? An important tournament, yes. Yeah, absolutely. So, but here's the thing. You've got this in fighting, so there's an excuse. So, why does he want a month camp? Not everyone has a month camp. The England manager, except for prior to a world cup, doesn't get a month camp before, uh, qualifiers and stuff like that.

He has the allocated FIFA window.  He wants a month's camp because players are coming from different clubs with different levels of basic bloody fitness.  Some are coming super fit. Look at Chante  and the Mumbai players in particular, super fit, great. Great fitness. Then you get players coming from other teams and regimes and they're like, they were gassing out on 70 minutes in the Australia game, the Uzbekistan game.

That's basic, man. That's got nothing to do with mentality, ability, technicality, none of that kind of stuff. So, so, I mean, just on those lines, right. Do you, or did you feel like there was an over dependence and over reliance on Sunil Chhetri, like, was, was there just too much on him where it's not just, you know, not the, not just the fans, but, but also the players on field really relying on him to sort of carry the team?

Uh, possibly. It's a legitimate, it's a legitimate, um, observation. Um, what I'll give you is my observation, which was I was there watching the games. So, you know what I saw? Here's one snapshot of the Sunil Chettri, um, dilemma, if you want to call it that. Cause he is, he's coming towards the end. He knows that he's been open about that.

Um,  he was chasing down the goalkeeper, pressing as it's called in football. And the two flank players. We're not what's called going with him. So it's like, it's, it's a trio. The person who's at the point, which is Sunil Chettri, he's the leading, leading man, the leading striker. He starts the press. So as soon as he goes, the two guys are going to go with him. 

They were like, 

Sunil's gone. Um,  do I go? Oh gosh. So you're telling me that Sunil is the problem? So it's dead easy for a goalkeeper just to pass it out right and pass it out left. Yeah. Because  too late. And that's what I started this rant, this rant about, which was the pace of the game in India is too slow. So therefore those guys can get away with that in the ISL.

You can't get away with it at Asian level. But Sunil Chettri is not the problem. Yeah, no, I didn't mean that he was the problem. I just. I was just wondering if there was by the way, that's, that's blasphemy that saying Sunil Chetri. I did not say talking about Sunil Chetri in any negative light is blasphemy.

I did not say he is a problem. I said in my religion, under my God, in my religion,  I asked if he had too much on his plate. Just, you know,  lightning now. Lightning! Bring lightning now! podcast where you will not let me ask questions. Sorry, Karim. So now let me, yeah. So what I want to get to now is Igor, then, right?

Like, a little bit about the players, you've given me your rant about the players, but about Igor, obviously, a lot of questionable choices, and as somebody who doesn't fight,  Even I thought that, you know, the first two games, it made sense. It looked like, you know, India was trying really hard. The choices were right.

The players were there to do something. And then suddenly Syria. And I felt like there were, were the wrong people benched? Were the right people on the field? Was it the right combination? Was it the best combination? out there because that was one match that we could have at least scored in. Um, but we didn't.

Do you think it was just a lot of, or a series of bad choices and decisions and permutations and combinations from Igor? Well, like I said, just a few moments ago, it, you know, everyone makes mistakes. And did Igor make mistakes in the tournament? Yes, he absolutely did. But then every coach that's ever coached in a tournament has made mistakes.

Was it just a mistake or was it like a cardinal sin that you can't come back from? Everything's easy in hindsight, isn't it? And we're all coaches, apparently. You know, we're all now fully qualified two days after the Syria game and after the Asian Cup has ended for India. We're now all fully qualified coaches.

The media, especially the bloody AIFF,  every single person that's got a mouth, and in particular has a social media account. is now, um, a specialist in coaching. Did he make mistakes? Yes, he did. Um, did the mistakes result in India not progressing or not winning against Syria?  Goodness me, we could be sitting here and they could have won against Syria.

And then all of a sudden we're not having this conversation, but we're still talking about India going out the tournament. So, you know,  one thing I will say is. a coach, um, at absolute elite level, whether you're Ancelotti at Real Madrid or Pep Guardiola or whatever, you will always be judged on the players that you put on the field of play.

Everything else is secondary to that. Your tactics, your formations, getting the best out of the players and making the substitutions at the right time, which, which in some of the games he did and some of the games he didn't, um, in my opinion, but it's about the players. I said from, uh, the very first game, having watched the first game, um, India were carrying Manvir Singh, um, and that Tapa would, would be integral to how India played throughout the whole tournament.

Now, Tapa didn't start the final game, and Tapa didn't start the final game against Bahrain. Is that not a coincidence? And remember, India should have got something out of Bahrain. So, um, but that's my opinion. So, uh, he, sees those guys in training every single day and he made a call based on what he saw in training.

Okay. So I have a comment on your opinion from where I sit. I see a sympathizer, right? So, um, you're not Indian. A sympathizer with ego. No, with, with the Indian football team, that is, there could be multiple reasons, A, you're not Indian, B, uh, I mean, you are Indian, but you know, just, you're, you're like, you're like a coconut.

You're the opposite of a coconut, you're, you're, you're white outside and brown inside. Coconuts are white inside and brown outside. The opposite, you're an inverted coconut. So you're, yeah, you're white outside and brown inside. Is, uh What's an inverted coconut? Just, like, do that to a coconut. You can't do that to a coconut.

Is there anything that is white outside and brown inside? Oh,  no, that's brown outside, white inside. Um, I don't know. Right. I know what you mean. Yes. So that's why you are. That's, that's a, and there's B, you're very closely involved. Cause you know, the players personally, you know, the, the way things function, you've been very involved.

Now think of it as a fan, as my brother who's sitting right there, right? Like he's grown up watching football and he's had a lot of his hopes and expectations pinned. You've got a brother. It's right there. I thought, A, you're an only child and B, you're adopted.  No, I'm not an only child. He's my cousin, but I do have a sister who you've met.

I thought you said he was your brother. He's my cousin. You just said he was your brother. That's how it works in India. Come on. Really? Yes. Everybody's like, we have it in our preamble. All Indians are my brothers and sisters. That's how it starts. Okay. Yes, but he's actually like a blood relative. We have the same surname and stuff.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was, um, God help you. Okay.  Yeah, so he has his hopes and expectations pinned on to these guys So they look at it from a very passionate view of you guys have to represent us and our dreams And you know, we want to see India there and performing and all of that. So they probably aren't all you know, they wouldn't watch it from the same lens as you would.

So that's why I feel like you're, you are very, um, you are a sympathizer. Like I feel like you, you do feel bad for them and your POV is very their POV, which is what brings me to how do you feel about the fans? Because the general consensus is that Indian football fans are patient, they're forgiving, and they're also quite understanding.

Do you agree? Oh, absolutely. You have to be when your team is just not performing to the level it should be at. Now, what is that level? Okay, it's not 25 in the world, but India should be in the top 10 in Asia. Absolute fact. Not even the top 15 in Asia. So they are underperforming. Now, fans, yes, of course. Um, and the fans are being shortchanged. 

Why have they been shortchanged? Because they're served up with this, what has now become the biggest PR and marketing league on the planet as far as I'm concerned and that's the Indian Super League. They travelled in their thousands to Qatar. Oh, by the way, Oh,  the fans in Doha were spectacular. Yeah. 

It's a, it's a mixture of a couple of things. Uh, the first game was approximately 36, 000. The second game was approximately 38, 39, 000. And the third game was 42, 43, 44, 000, somewhere like that. I guarantee you the Indian fans were in all three of those games were  90%, sometimes more. Now, the way those stadiums are built, the World Cup stadiums, they didn't just rattle up. 

right, we need to fit in 50, 000 seats here. The architecture of those stadiums was just Tip top. They were designed with, with, um, what's the word? With sound  in mind. Okay. With the audio. So, even though in the first game 34 of the 36, 000 fans were Indian, it sounded like there was 80, 000 fans in there. Yeah.

And I remember turning to the guy next to me and just saying, Can you imagine the noise? if this was the World Cup. Yeah. This is the first game of the Asian Cup. It's a group game. It's not even a knockout game. The metro stations were packed full, though some of those fans would be expats based in Doha, but the majority weren't.

They'd flown in. There was the ones on my flight from Dubai. Yeah. So, um. But how did they react? Do you, like, after the matches, at least, you know, after they saw how their team performed, for whom they fought? flu, you know, across seas. Um, what was the reaction? Was it anger? Was it again, disappointment? Were they aggressive at all?

Yeah, all of the above. Yeah. Yeah. Despondency, um, angry, a whole mix depending on who it was. The thing was that the,  the fans, they are Asian level. If I said top 10 fans in Asia. doubt that India's in that top 10 in terms of the fan base, but they've been short changed. They're being let down. They've been let down by the federation have been done for years.

Praful Patel. Um, so they've been let down by the federation that they've been let down by, uh, uh, by their leagues. Um, they're being let down by the players in the Asian cup. Absolutely. Um,  So,  uh,  they've got every right to, to be annoyed at the moment. They've got every right, in my opinion, right now, to point fingers of blame.

Even if it may be pointing in the wrong direction. The ones who don't have the right to point the fingers of the blame are administrators.  So then it's the administrators and going back to Well, it's not all administrators. It's a number of things. Right. So, then,  let's, let's talk about It was a reality check.

This tournament was a reality check. And what was the reality then? What is the reality? The reality is your, your, your youth development is not good enough. The reality is your superstar league, the Indian super league is just simply is not good enough. So stop deluding yourself. All right. The reality is players have to get out of the country.

PIOs have to come in. These are the realities. People have been talking about this for years. It's not all of a sudden we've sat up after the Asian cup departure and gone, right, what do we do? What's, you know, what's the solutions? What, where are we going with this? But what's stopping it from happening, right?

Because this is not the first time we've been in an Asian country. We mentioned it before! Corruption, nepotism, infighting, what were all the words we used? Yes. So we're going back to that. But now these are obviously now long term fixes. We have something else coming up very, very soon. That's the World Cup qualifiers.

So what has this done to India's chances for the qualifiers? I think it's done a little bit of damage, to be honest with you, because I think it's knocked the confidence of some of those players. Yeah. And I think it's knocked the confidence of quite a few people. Is it time to, to, you know, what's the saying?

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's, that's what I hope doesn't happen. That you just go like, right, all of these players, none of them are good enough, let's get in a whole bunch of new players for the qualifiers. No, no, no, no, no. This is the top level that the Indian players, the current crop of Indian players will ever reach.

So you should be going through that team, watching the videos, if you're the coaching staff, and they probably have already done this, going through the team, watching those videos and going, these are the ones who were able to do it under pressure,  so they can do it in the World Cup qualifiers, under pressure. 

And these ones simply can't. Right. So now if you were given again, I'm going to ask you that again. If you were given a billion dollars today for the Indian football league,  super league, super league. Yeah, no, no, no. What is it called? No, the, for the Indian football club, the Indian football team, team, team.

That's the word I'm looking for. The national team. The national team. Yes. That's the word. So if you. The blue tigers. If you were given a billion dollars, what is it that again, you're going to change now that you've seen what went wrong in the Asia cup? So you had a more generic answer the last time I asked you, but if specifically there was something Well, you only gave me, you only gave me 3000 rupees the last time.

Now you're saying a billion dollars. That's a completely different story. I can't do much with 3000 rupees. But you can do a lot with a billion. So what you what, a billion dollars I would get, um, international, uh, high level, high quality coaches, coaching Indian youth players at the various age groups, right below the senior level team, uh, coaching those, uh, those age groups.

That's the first thing I would do because the coaching at 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 just isn't up to international standards. So therefore they're getting to the, the senior team.  And learning on the job. Have you heard that phrase? Learning on the You can't be learning on the job. There was mistakes that were made in those games in the Asian Cup, which I see being made by 14 year olds in Europe, for example. 

Very big difference  cocking it up in an under 14s or an under 15s tournament. It isn't the end of the world  to cocking it up in the Asian Cup  or the World Cup, God forbid. So that's the first thing I'd do. The second thing is anyone who's got any potential ability or talent whatsoever, get them out of bloody India!

Get them out! Tomorrow and put them in environments, competitive environments with quality coaching, quality facilities, until you fixed all those issues. I was talking about facilities and the training pitches were like this.  Can you imagine a ball going across this like marbles across the speed that it goes across the surface in comparison to, to.

back in India. So until you fixed all of those things, you can't just go and put in hundreds of high quality training pitches in India tomorrow and build hundreds of high quality stadiums tomorrow and coach thousands, tens of thousands of high quality youth tomorrow. You can't do that in that space of time.

So until you do, you can't do that. Get this generation out, get this generation of talent out. That's what I would do with a billion. But again, what they'd say is it's easier said than done, right? Would that happen in the short term? And again, what needs to be done? I'm just looking for it. By the way, sorry to interrupt you.

Um, you're talking about billions. And I know you threw that figure at me figuratively speaking. Yes.  The last time I checked, India is the third  ranked country in the world for the number of billionaires.  Am I right? Behind, behind the United States and China, if I'm not mistaken, there are thereabouts. So when people say investment, and like, there's never been enough investment put into the national team.

Comes back to what we chatted about a couple of weeks ago, Shruti, soft power, soft power, soft power on the international stage.  You've got all these billionaires who are putting every last fucking rupee they've got into cricket and not into their football team. By the way, there was not one Bollywood star.

at, at any of the games. No celebrities at all? No celebrities at any of the games. But I see them for the ISL, they're always there. How did they not come for a bigger game? They're contracted, number one. Number two, that, that doesn't bother me, that, that's just the way it is. Um, what bothers me is every single one of them would be on their private jet and were on their private jet to the World Cup games in Qatar a year ago. 

So why can't you go, you can go and watch Leo Messi and Harry Kane and, and whoever else, but you can't get on your private jet with all the money you've got and go and support your national team. I, I still haven't seen it. Am I,  Have I missed somebody?  If I've, you know, I'm on, I'm on social media on a daily basis.

So either they slipped in and slipped out. I was fortunate enough. Thank you. Thank you very much to be in the VIP section of, uh, of two of the games and like,  uh, help me understand this. Why are you so passionate about this particular aspect? Why do you think it's important for celebrities to be showing support?

Be proud.  Are you not proud of your country?  Are you asking me? Yes, I'm asking you. I'm not a celebrity, but of course I am. Are you proud of your country? Yeah, so the fans get their job. There are aspects of, uh, that you're not proud of, of your country, right? Not, we're proud, we're all proud of where we've come from and our countries.

It's about pride. I mean, it's the kit, man.  God damn it. The kit is like it was made in,  you know, fell out the back of a, it's like the cast offs of a, of a factory from the arse end of bloody Vietnam or somewhere like that. No disrespect Vietnam. Cause I'm sure they make quality stuff there as well. But this it's certainly not the Indian national football team kit.

Where's the pride. You know, how many people came up to me and said, where did you get your tracksuit top from? I've got the tracksuit top, the Indian national team tracksuit top that Sunil Chettri gave me. Chettri, bye.  Chetry Pie. Pie. We're not starting that again. We're doing that. You have to say pie.

We're, it's not chetry pie.  . Um, um, so I, uh, chetry pi pie, uh, pie gave it to me, um, just over 10 years ago. It was the national team kit and it was made by Nike and it's quality and the amount of people that came up to me and said, where did you get that from? Oh, that's nice. You know, like, like, you know how you feel, the quality of something  and, and now, so what happened?

Are you saying that the quality or. Or the intent perhaps deteriorated over the years? No, no, it's not about deterioration. My point is every single detail, let me put it this way. One of the greatest is someone like Sir Alex Ferguson. Yeah, is a football manager. He ran Manchester United like a dictator  and he was across everything. 

Would Sir Alex Ferguson  allow things like that to happen? He would make sure. that the team had the best of the best, the best physios, the best kit, the best of everything to, because he was proud. He was proud to wear that badge. In fact, he was the one that forced all the players to wear the blazers with the Manchester United badge.

They couldn't turn up in their own kit, which they did when he first arrived. So it's about pride in every single thing you do. Why? Because it's a statement of intent. Right. Another thing that you always talk about is obviously international standards. You're talking about how these players need to go out of the country, experience that quality and all of it.

But for this particular, um, tournament, we did have a few international figures in the team, right? Of course, there's Igor, but there's also Trevor Sinclair, um, who was that international name and figure. But what did he really do is my first question and then we'll get on to, you know, did he get paid as much as the rumours say?

Well, okay, let's, let's, let's break it down. Yeah, one by one. Okay, well, let's deal with the elephant in the room first and talk about salary. I don't know is the answer to the question that he was paid. What are they talking about? 10, 000. Right. Um, I don't know if that's the number. So that's where I'll start.

The other side of that is even if it was 10, 000, and let's assume for a second for this argument that it is 10, 000, what  to have an international number one, a former premier league player, a world cuppa and someone who has his coaching badges, right? He's got his UEFA licenses in your team for 10, 000. 10, 000.

They've got him for a steal. Yahya Toure is the assistant to Roberto Mancini in Saudi Arabia. Do you think he was on, for this tournament, 10, 000 for, let's assume it's a month,  a month contract. It has to be something like that. Maybe at least 10 times that. It'd be 10, 000 minimum a week. Yeah. A week, probably every couple of days.

If that's, if, if, If you are deadly serious, that's the numbers that you're going to have to put out there to get this standard of coach.  Whatever you think he did or didn't do. Like, are you deluded? It comes back to the billionaires thing saying, Oh, we haven't got the money. I bet you there's people who will watch this going like, Oh yes, but India can't afford to pay what Saudi Arabia is paying.

Right. Okay. Maybe he's done enough to pay as much as Saudi Arabia, but at least you can be competitive in the international environment when it comes to salaries, because that's going to get the best coach. Okay. Igor Shtimak, right? People are pointing the finger of blame at him. All right, sack him.  Sack him tomorrow.

Okay, fine. And what? Bring Jose Mourinho in. You're gonna pick up the phone to Jose Mourinho, are you? He is not coming for 10, 000 for the Asian Cup, Jose Mourinho. He's not coming for 20, 000. He's not coming for 50, 000. He isn't coming for 100, 000.  Get a fucking grip, man, of, of  your perspective.  Right. So that's the, that's the monetary aspect of it. 

Some are saying about, he was brought in as a specialist, uh, what was it? A set piece coach. Is that right? Assistant coach, right? Well, he's job title is assistant coach, but he was brought in to do set pieces. First of all, there's no such thing as a set piece coach. This is not the American football. It's not the NFL, you know, where they have a coach for every single aspect of their  crazy, disjointed game.

Just so we understand, what is a set piece coach? A set piece coach is someone who is there, to just coach for set pieces and set pieces are things like throw ins, corners, uh, anything where the ball is static, the players are static. Well, they're not static because it's a bit of pushing and shoving, but you know what I mean?

There's no such thing. Will he have been doing set pieces? Yes, quite probably. But he was there and as an offensive coach, you sort of, it's like trying to, to bring the players up to speed, but it comes back to how much Again, pull Jose Mourinho in and, and, and I'm not just talking about Jose himself, pull Jose Mourinho in and his staff and tell me how many of those players you could get in a position to be world beaters or Asian beaters in the space of January, 2024.

Yeah. Impossible.  The kids weren't even kicking a football most of them at 10 years old, 12 years old, while the rest of the world is actually getting coaching and trained at that age. Yeah. So then, just going back to the Trevor Sinclair conversation again, right? Do you think that was needed at all? Did we need a Trevor Sinclair at all for this game?

Uh, yes.  But we didn't have the right resources. Is that what you're saying? No, what I'm saying to you is, um,  He had to be remunerated, right? No, no, no, no,  yeah, forget the money thing for a second. You've brought someone in who has a deep knowledge, understanding and experience, which is the most important thing, of playing large tournaments. 

At the highest level, not the second highest level or the third highest level, the highest level. Igor Stimac has played in the Premier League. And if I'm not mistaken, he actually went to the world cup in the, in the nineties with Croatia, if I'm not mistaken either. So there you have figures who understand what is required mentally to perform in a tournament.

And just to go back to what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago, tournament environment is very different to league  and especially at this level. So you've brought someone in. Who can give a little bit of advice to the players and just calm them down, gee them up mentally. It's a mental game as much as anything else.

It's a physical game.  Great.  Is your rant over for the day?  I just wanted to leave it at a high. I don't want to bring you down. I mean, I love this energy. Like yesterday, or when was it? We did it a couple of weeks back. The energy was fun. It was casual. It was Joe not letting me talk. It's still Joe not letting me talk, but it was Joe's rant.

And he's very angry, as you can see, for the right reasons. I have more. What's, what's that yoga thing? The breathing exercises. Yeah. What do you do? What? This? The Pranayam. Yeah, what do you do? Pranayam, so you go, breathe in.  I can't breathe in. Breathe out. My nose was pinched. Oh, one side. That's fine. Yeah, another one.

Sure. I'm probably not doing it right, but. I don't feel any karma. Yeah, but see if you do. I don't think it's, I don't think, I don't, I don't think it's Pradayam. I think it's you. It's not Pradayam. It's Pranayam. Pranayam. I don't think it's Pranayam. you. Like it's not Chhetri Pai. It's Chhetri Pai. Labhabha.

There's a B there. All right. Great, Joe. Thank you. It's great to see a bloody Britisher be so passionate about Indian football. It has given us a little bit of, um, clarity and I wouldn't say closure, but then we, you know why you've, you've made us see the problems, um, from, from the right point of view, I'd say from a different point of view, if not right, at least, you know, we've always been seeing this as, as just passionate viewers who, you know, are very quick to sort of criticize and point fingers and blame and be angry at the players because they are the ones that we see.

So they're the ones that, that get the brunt of, you know, whatever our emotions are at that point. But thank you for this. It was very enlightening for me as somebody who is, um, who is a proud Indian, but I wouldn't say a good fan because I don't really understand. I thought you were about to say, I thought you were about to say a good person as a. 

As a proud Indian, but someone who's not a good, um, there was a pause, uh, person.  Go back to being angry. Go back to your rant. I'm going back to my whiskey. Oh yes, where's my whiskey, by the way? Your whiskey? Yes. Which whiskey? You said Do you want a red label? I'll have that arranged for you. Yes, you did. Oh yes, sir.

Oh yes, now you remember. What was it called again? What was the name? Indra, what? Indri, yeah. Indri. Yeah, Indri. Indri. Yeah. It is the best. It's so good.  It's the best whiskey in the world. Do you work for them? Do you?  We are a proud Indian, yeah! Um, yes. Is it Asian cup standard whiskey, is it?  It's actually quite good. 

You can have it with Yeah, of course. You can have it with what? You don't have quality whiskey with anything, except ice. With ice. I thought you were about to say With ice! Severn up! Coke! Coke! Have it with coke! Just, yeah, that's how you do it. Good whiskey, just one cube of ice. Every Indian I've ever met in my travels across your wonderful land has had whiskey with bloody coke.

Do you know what a patiala is? Patiala? Yeah. No. That's a measurement. Patiala.  I just learned recently. So it's, so there's 90 ml, anything above where you don't really measure and it's like half a glass or whatever. It's not. That's what I, that's what I just said. I learned. So anything above 90 ml and 90 ml is a patiala.

Is what I thought. 

The glass is full. And equal amounts of alcohol and water. All right. Equal amounts of what?  So, 

so half alcohol, half water in a, filled up to the brim of a full glass is a patiala.  Is a patiala what? Peg. Peg.  Yes.  Don't say it like that. You looked at me with, with that. No, was that right?  You know what a peg is? Yeah. You put clothes on the clothesline.  That's a peg. No, no. Like a peg. Oh, I didn't know that was an Indian thing.

It's an Indian thing. So it's basically.  A peg, like a peg, you know, you take your t shirt and you peg it to the clothesline. That's a peg, yes?  What? Not a keg! Not a keg, a peg. A peg, like it's a peg. Of alcohol, like one peg of like, is that a peg? It's like a glass. Yeah. Is that a peg? Yeah, like, like a serving.

A serving. Yeah. Okay.  Yeah, we don't have, um, patialas. We have, um, just a good time.  Anything above the, anything above the, what was it? 90 mil? Give me a good time.  But if you've been to any Dubai brunch, we see a lot of, um, Um, the pegs. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of, um, uh, people that get white girl wasted. Have you seen that at the Dubai branches?

Oh, that is a thing. So like how pegs is a thing for Indians. White girl wasted is a thing for every white girl at a brunch in Dubai.  And on that very high note, I'm going to say thank you, Joseph, for joining me, or was I joining you?  Well, for talking  and letting me finish at least a few questions this time.

This was rather refreshing. It was a rarity. It'll never happen again. It'll not, I, I believe you when you say that. Namaste.  Chai Football was presented by me, Joe Morrison, alongside Shruti.  The show is recorded at W four Podcast Studios in Dubai. The producer was Ian Carlos, the studio engineer and editor was Roy Diante,  the executive producer was myself.

Joe Morrison and Ian Carlos,  if you'd like to contact us, head over to our Chai football Instagram account and send us a dm or alternatively hit me up on Twitter  at joe footy. That is at JEF double OTY. We love hearing from you and we will be every week picking out the best of your questions and comments.

If you're based in Dubai and would like to record your own podcast or have a professional podcast team assist you in producing branded content for your business, then head over to www. w4podcaststudio.  com and get in touch with the team.