A New Dawn for Indian Football

It's a Hat-trick for Indian Football. Starting with the Nehru Cup in 2007,then the AFC Challenge Cup in 2008, and now the Nehru Cup in 2009.

India, ranked 156th in FIFA World Rankings, defeated Syria, ranked 95th, 5-4 on Penalties. The game went into Extra Time, as a result of a 0-0 score at the end of 90 minutes. The scores were still leveled at 0-0 at the end of first half of Extra Time. Towards the end of the second half of Extra Time,Indian super-sub Rennedy Singh scored a wonderful goal of a free kick set-piece. But India's hope's of sealing the Trophy were short lived as the Syrian's bounced back in the 2nd minute of Injury time to level 1-1,opening the way for a Penalty Shoot-out, better known as Sudden Death.
Subrata Pal,Indian Goal-Keeper, stunned everybody watching the game with his heroic skills and eventually won the game by saving 3 Penalty shots from Syrian players. He was awarded a very well deserved the Man Of The Match Award. Baichung Bhutia was awarded the Player of the Tournament, for the 2nd consecutive time in a Major Tournament, the last being the AFC Challenge Cup in 2008, which India had won too. He's proven again, that despite his age he is still an icon people can look upto. Bollywood Actor Salman Khan, who had came to see the game, agreed to become the Brand Ambassador of Indian Football.
The person behind the success is none other than Coach Bob Houghton, who, despite the almost non-existent support from the AIFF, has been doing his duty very well since appointed coach of the Indian Football Team. He's got home the 'Hat-Trick'. "The boys deserved to win because they worked very hard for the tournament," said a very kind-hearted Bob Houghton as he went on to add - "The atmosphere in the team is excellent and we just loved the support we got from the crowd. It's a great night for Indian football."

One is forced to think the difference between Indian Football and Indian Cricket when the AIFF announced a reward of a Rs 2 Lakhs per player, a very low amount if compared to what the players have achieved. Now it's left to see how the Indian Government reacts to this Historic victory and triumph. Will it give the players the much deserved priveleges and take Indian Football into consideration henceforth(lets forget 'serious' consideration) or will Indian Football continued to be ignored?
That, time will tell. But this victory has proved one thing to the ever-so-ignorant citizens of India who believed India cannot achieve anything in Football - India CAN play football. If India continues to achieve success like this on the International stage, and if the Indian Media does it's help to promote the successes, the Government will be forced to pay attention to the sport, leaving the 'crowd-favorite' sport of Cricket.

It's time we support India..so that, one day, when India wins a Major Trophy at an International Stage, we will be able to say to our children or grandchildren - 'I was there, and I saw it begin.' I'm sure, we're witnessing a new dawn, a new era of Indian Football. Let's be a part of it.