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Originally Posted by roman
India with so much money and talent is trying very hard and still cant even come close to teams like Japan, Iran or South Korea. LOL. And we on the other hand cant even beat Bhutan now. Back in the days teams like Bhutan, Maldives , Sri Lanka were walk in the park for us. We were very competitive against China, Japan, Thailand.
Munna was the best defender in South Asia and one of the best in Asia. Kaiser Hamid was also very good defender. Shabbir was our Maradona, Salam and Aslam were great striker. I was fortunate enough to see them play. And have read that The magician Samad once challenged the referee about the height of the goal post as 2 of his shots hit the bar. Good old days.
I do not mind rising of cricket. But I do mind how we have forgotten about football. Like everything else in Bangladesh, we destroy anything that is capable of bringing good results. Be it Jute industry, chess or football.
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India (with the exception of Northeast region) did not have a big football culture. Cricket and Hockey was ingrained in their psyche and that's why both Ind/Pak dominated hockey and now cricket. While football only remained in obsession in certain regions.
Cricket is so dominant that there has been at least a dozen British Asians of Ind/Pak descent playing for England team. But maybe 1-2 players at best playing in 20 teams across the entire EPL. Interestingly, there is a Bangladeshi descent player in Leicester City now.
But we had a strong football culture and failed to capitalize on it. Money/Investment doesn't is important but doesn't guarantee sustained top level performance (USA/China/India).
We completely gave up on football. Nowadays the obsession is only around WC and the upper middle class "cool" kids following EPL/La Liga and fighting on social media about Barca/Real/Man U/Bayern etc.