Sleeping Giant Football Nations

Why not?

Our coaches are decent and we always import some Dutch and Argie coaches from time to time to get updated... the facilities if well, not top class, are better than most of that of South American countries:

FMF's:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMuHNk1jK6s"]Somos Guerreros: Conoce la cueva del Guerrero (Centro de Alto Rendimeinto). - YouTube[/ame]

Pachuca's:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27O3zR7loQw"]Instalaciones del Pachuca - YouTube[/ame]

Most clubs have minimalist facilities, but they're better than what I have seen of an Ajaccio and equal to those of an Espanyol or Zaragoza.

 

South Korea

 

moldives

 

Maybe not in Spain but in Brazil I would say you would be wrong. South America genreally would take a very cynical approcach to dealing with the oppositions best players. The "tactical foul" was an integral part of Brazilian football not too long ago, when Luis Felipe Scolari was perfecting the most cynical kind of football when coaching in the Brazilian league. This was shortly before getting the national team job first time round.

 

In India at least that's not true. Generalising like that regarding a country with a population of 1 billion is foolish. Particularly given the fact that some parts of India differ from others culturally, linguistically and religiously in the ways that different countries do in Europe. Football is hugely popular in India, as is cricket of course. It has such poor infrastructure, sponsorship money, quality stadiums, decent coaching etc though that India are a long way off ever competing at a serious level. Bear in mind that crowds of 100,000 are not unheard of in the Calcutta derby between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal - hardly a crowd typical of a country apathetic to the beautiful game.

Can it not be argued that the college system tends to leave a lot of talented young players unscouted and lost to the game? If a talented kid doesn't come through the college system because he can't afford it or wasn't lucky enough to get a scholarship there are very few chances he might make it into MLS and professional football? Poorer areas that traditionally in the Americas produce your Maradonas et al are largely bypassed in the United States's footballing structure.

 

Do you think they adopt that type of style from a young age though? I was talking more along the lines of under age football. I just can't imagine that being the case in Brazil.

 

Oh yes. Watching street matches between kids in Buenos Aires was brutal. One of the best prospects the US has had this decade (Charles Renken) had his career derailed 5-6 years ago in a U-17 match against Brazil on an unbelievably dirty tackle. The US and Brazilian U-17 squads play each other most years and it's usually one of the more physical matches the US plays. I also remember a match against Uruguay in the U-20 WC back in 2007 that ended with a fight. They're taught from a young age to try to get under the opposition's skin, but I think it comes naturally to a lot of them as well.

 

Hungary?

Once upon a time they ruled football

 

Belgium.

 

I would say in the past this was very true, but it's changing. You have the USSDA which covers the "traditional" areas of the US very well and the MLS academies have a stranglehold on a market that is larger in size to many European countries. LA has got Villarreal, NY has a few (Altidore was their product, Agudelo is elsewhere but being signed by Stoke), New England has Fagundez who, unfortunately, is not a US citizen... basically the MLS academies are producing talents. Then you have the Liga MX clubs who are scouring the country for players who have Mexican ties (and therefore won't count as foreign), including Jose Francisco Torres, Joe Benny Corona, El Homie Castillo, and others (including a very promising player named Paul Arriola) in addition to the conventionally-scouted players who will go to Europe including Rubio Rubin at Utrecht, Juan Flores at Dortmund, Emerson Hyndman at Fulham; and in addition you have dual citizens who are the benefit of the underratedly large American diaspora including Mix Diskerud of Rosenborg, Aron Jóhannsson of AZ Alkmaar, John Anthony Brooks of Hertha Berlin, etc. This leaves the NCAA university system as the last ditch development zone for late bloomers (Matt Besler, the starting CB of the USMNT from Notre Dame).

So, all in all, I think the bases are being covered increasingly well, although for a country of over 300 million people, there will always be unturned stones.

 

There are states of India not famed for their Cricket internationally, to the best of my knowledge areas like Kerala (very south) Goa (west coast) and Jammu and Kashmir (very north). Yet, in these areas Cricket is still the most popular sport in these areas and they have produced Test quality players like Shanthakumaran Sreesanth. The big cities dominate the Cricket world there, but really, over the full length and breadth of the country nothing comes close to Cricket - except for when India play Pakistan at field hockey.

India has just an incomprehensibly large population. Say 50 million love badminton, bar a few countries anywhere else that would be the most popular sport but that's not even 10% of the population in India.

That's generally a one off. I don't have numbers but I'd expect that the rest of the time the crowds are tiny. Like when events such as archery at the 2012 Olympics drew big crowds. Football just can't pull they same crowds in India that the IPL does, or One Day Internationals or even Test matches. In the examle you gave, the Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal can pull 80 odd thousand for that one of game, but Kolkata Knight Riders pull 90,000 to Eden Gardens ever time they play.

Dempo S.C from Goa (A team I only know of because they had a Brazilian called Cristiano Júnior who died playing a game) I'm sure can't regularly draw the same crowds that say, Kings XI Punjab can even when they go up to Dharamsala.

Football will have by any other countries standard a huge following in India, but the vast majority are sadly "apathetic to the beautiful game".