Trivandrum misses the vibe

As the football world reeled from the sensational punishments meted out to the two most powerful men of the game, one idyllic city in the southernmost part of India was yesterday trying to lift itself up to the challenge of hosting a major international football tournament for the first time.

Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, seemed quite lethargic in getting into the mood of the SAFF Championship, or the SAFF Suzuki Cup as it has been branded this time around, which kicks off today in the recently-built state-of-the-art Sports Hub when Nepal take on Sri Lanka.

The state of Kerala is known to be one of the few strongholds of football in India, and when the average ISL-matches featuring the local franchise draw crowds of 50,000 on average, there is no scope to question the popularity of the game in this part of the world. The idea of taking the apex South Asian football event to this state, and especially to the state-of-the-art stadium, was to highlight the city and the state in a new light. But thanks to the lack of co-ordination between the Kerala Football Federation, the All India Football Federation and the SAFF, that cause seems to have been hurt a great deal.

There were hardly any noticeable promotional activities surrounding the event in the city as most of the activities were confined within the walls of the two five-star hotels where the seven teams and the officials were staying.

The indifference towards a major tournament like this and the inherent organising failures took much of the focus away from the game during the pre-tournament joint-press conference. Afghanistan coach Peter Segrt started the pre-tournament joint-press conference with a flurry of allegations of organisational inefficiency, which were shared by most of his peers, and quite interestingly, reinforced by the coach of the host country, Stephen Constantine.

Once the frustration and accusations were set aside and the game took the centre-stage, it was evident how much this tournament meant to most of these teams. Most of the teams have been preparing for the last 15 to 20 days and some of those teams, including Maldives and Bhutan, came here after holding training camps overseas.

Afghanistan -- the defending champions who have been pitted in Group B alongside Maldives, Bangladesh and Bhutan -- have brought a new-look side with only two players retained from the previous edition two years ago. Yet, they are the favourites thanks to 18 Europe-based players in their ranks, while India, the beaten finalists in the last edition, are the six-time winners of this tournament and will start as favourites in Group A, which also features Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Most of the coaches felt that this tournament would be very competitive since there is very little difference between most of the teams in terms of quality.