Who would win that in 2018? 2022? 2026? 2030? 2034?

The very common guess would either be a South American or an European country or a singled out niche might guess it as Japan , South Korea , Australia or Iran from AFC.

Nevertheless people might consider it a bit sarcastic if the answer turned to be a South Asian country, before getting to analyze why we suck and how can we rock in the International football arena, let us first determine where the 7 or with recent addition 8 south asian countries rank.

South asian teams as seen from the below chart consists of some of the lowest ranked and Pakistan ranks at 201 is also among the 10 weakest ranked in the world.

FIFA rankings and South Asian Countries

Country	South Asian Ranking	FIFA Global Ranking
India	1	101
Maldives	2	151
Afghanistan	3	153
Bhutan	4	164
Nepal	5	170
Bangladesh	6	193
Sri lanka	7	197
Pakistan	8	201

over 1700 million people and not a single world cup match

We have never seen a single match in the world cup where any of the south asian team participated, India however qualified for the 1950 world cup and did not participate for which I call lame excuses.

Are we too weak for football?

I have seriously pondered over this and guess what, back when I was a kid and used to watch the likes of zidane and Ronaldo play the 2006 world cup I assumed that we (sri lankans and south asians in general) were genuinely weak for football since it involved a lot of running , passion and skills.

I'm not a genetic genius to figure out are we south asians really weak physically for football but all I could say is after having watched the recent Indian Super league I have long debunked that theory and considered myself kind of stupid to have made that assumption.

The problem is our school system and the physical training does't craft proper football players. Unlike cricket football is a very aggressive game and requires perfect fitness you keep running nonstop for 90+ minutes , heading the ball , ball control all require a perfect flexible body with great stamina.

Media stereotypes and football interests

Although cricket is the most followed sport in south asia (at least in India , Sri lanka , Bangladesh and Pakistan) football easily comes in second and in certain south asian countries like Maldives and perhaps Bhutan and maybe Afghanistan football is the most watched and followed sport.

The population is well over the limit for us to put out the excuse that we are too focused on cricket to  actively upgrade football.

People are indeed interested in football , I was so amazed to see the posts that many desis made on social media regarding the Real madrid vs barca encounter 2 days ago. It is the media that has stereotyped that football is a foreign culture, In my country sri lanka they would always talk about a B-team cricket match rather than focus on international football match in their so called "sports" news which I prefer to call as cricket news.

South Asians playing for clubs in Europe

Among all the odds south asians do play in Europe for domestic leagues Afghanistan has the highest number of players playing from south asia for European clubs over 30 afghan players represented in European football leagues. India has 2 players and Pakistan has around 4.

 Milad Salam from Kabul Afghanistan is the goal keeper of  FSV frakfurt (although not a famous club and plays in the german association clubs and not bundasliga) 

 Jaber Sharza yet another player from Afghanistan who plays for the first division in Denmark

Musthafa hadid from Kandahar Afghanistan plays for Alton 93 of oberliga

Arian Assim afghan plays for wacker innsbruck II in the Regional liga - Austria

The most significant achievement though will have to be sunil chetri the Indian football team skipper who once played for Manchester United I believe as a substitute player.

The simple and easy way to make south asia prosper is firstly the media has to change its attitude towards football and make it routine and give the same prominence it gives cricket.

Football also doesn't require as much equipment as cricket you just need a ball and anything can be a goal post!

Tell the budding footballers that they are better off in a career with football than any other sport (after all isn't that the reality), the middle class desi parent is more of duckling kind of character always want to show you a similar person and tell you that they succeeded and therefore you can succeed, i'm sure you didn't get what I mean right lets go in for a role play...

Son walks in with a football and tells parents I want to be a football player one day, mother with tears in the eye yells at son and complains to dad "look after all the sacrifices we did and all the dreams we had he is going to become a football player, I had dreams when he was a kid he will one day become a doctor or engineer or cricket player like sachin"

if you parents ever told you that just google the average pay of the top 100 football players and show it to them.

Let us hope for the better of this great game football in South asia!

Minshaf Mumthas

FIFA 17 FRUT MILLIONAIRE