This post was written by Ishaan Mahadevan, a contributor for Power Forward.
India, a population of 1.2 billion people, is primarily known for its cricket team being the number one team in the world and for being the home of the worlds’ biggest film industry: Bollywood. Yet, India is not well known for its football (soccer). India is only ranked 152nd in the world and only qualified for the 1950 World Cup, to which they refused to play because FIFA did not allow them to play with their bare feet.
If India can produce star cricket players like Sachin Tendukar, then why can’t the second biggest country in the world can’t produce 11 great players to compete at the World Cup? Though a majority of Indians love the beautiful game, soccer is not as popular as Cricket and Bollywood. In India, Bollywood Stars endorse Indian Premier League teams (The World’s first club-cricket league, thus increasing the popularity of cricket in India.) Yet, just started a month ago was a new hope of soccer becoming popular in India: The Hero Indian Super League.
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