FOOTBALL: Indian soccer dances to Brazilian samba

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Indian soccer dances to Brazilian samba

By Krittivas Mukherjee, Indo-Asian News Service

Kolkata, Apr 26 (IANS) There is more than a whiff of Brazil in this Makkah
of Indian football.

While Brazilian superstars have inspired generations of Indian footballers,
second-string players from the South American nation are now ruling the
roost in clubs here.

One of them, Douglas da Silva, playing his first season in India has led his
side, East Bengal, to the National League title. Other Brazilians are making
significant contribution to their clubs.

Africans footballers, particularly Nigerians, Kenyans and Ghanaians, made
their appearance in India in the 1980s. But presently it is the Brazilian
samba the country's football clubs are dancing to.

>From being an appendage for attraction sake, the foreign players are today
emerging as pivots around which a team's fortunes are woven.

Douglas, a midfielder, for instance, has been East Bengal's chief playmaker
and has occasionally scored himself. He struck twice Friday to help East
Bengal beat Vasco 4-0.

Jose Ramirez Barreto, Carlos da Silva, Rui Wanderly Weis, Marcos Pereira and
Gilmar da Silva are some of the other Brazilians playing in the national
league.

If it was Nigerian striker Chima Okerie who ruled the roost in Indian
football in the 1980-90s, it was a wily Brazilian, Jose Ramirez Barreto, who
was the toast of the Indian soccer last season.

It is again Brazilian Douglas who has been instrumental in East Bengal's
triumph this season.

Although the Africans are still around with Nigerians Mike Okoro and Yusuf
Yakubu being leading scorers this season with 17 and 18 goals successively,
it's the Brazilians who are being sought by the various clubs here.

While the Africans brought in a raw brute style of football that continued
to rule the game here, the switch to the more skilful South American style
did not go unnoticed.

Suddenly, domestic football is a mixture of Latin American and African
football. Needless to say, the "Indian style" is relegated as an add-on.

But experts complain that the foreign brand of soccer is taking its toll on
indigenous talent.

The interest of foreign players in playing Indian club soccer is an
encouraging sign that professionalism was finally coming to the Indian
football. But it has raised questions about the quality of the game of
Indian players, who are being overshadowed by their foreign colleagues.

This has raised questions about the future of Indian football, which ranks a
low 129th in FIFA ranking.

Indian football remained serious business till about 1960s when India won
the Asian Games gold.

But the standard of the game fell rapidly thereafter, primarily because it
remained restricted to three clubs of Kolkata -- Mohun Bagan, East Bengal
and Mohammedan Sporting.

The rivalry between these three clubs had become the staple of footballer
lovers. But in the past six years clubs like Salgaoncar, Vasco and Churchill
Brothers have come up.

--Indo-Asian News Service