Live India, Love Football

Another trip...another great sporting experience. I went down to Mumbai these past few days to attend the India International Sports Summit hosted by Transstadia. Fortunately, Vanita's company sent her to the summit as well so we got a mini holiday out of it. The objective was to discuss ways to grow the sporting landscape in India.  There were about 500 attendees made up of government officials, marketers, NGO heads, club admin staff and sports legends.  Overall, it was a great networking event for Vanita and I and an excellent opportunity for us to learn more about the stregnths and areas of opportunity within the Indian sporting landscape. Also, growing football in India took up about 60% of the summit content which was reassuring given what my objective in coming to this country is. The lowlights were many pompous speakers who loved listening to the sound of their own voice, moderators only looking to create controversy, point...

I just got back from spending a weekend in South Goa with Vanita.  If Calcutta is a "Football Heaven" then Goa is definitely a "Football Paradise." Goa is a former Portuguese colony located in southwest India just south of Mumbai. It’s a place full of beaches, great seafood, tourists and soccer fields. I’m not sure whether it is the Portuguese influence, great weather or luck of the draw, but  football is everywhere in this place. We went on a drive through some villages and along the way we asked our cab driver to stop at every football field so we could take pictures and run around like kids. There are 3 professional clubs in Goa and we actually ended up seeing one of them, Salgocar de Goa, at the airport coming back from losing to Chirag United in Calcutta. We also ran into former Rapids and Salgocar de Goa coach Tim Hankinson. It was interesting discussing the state of soccer in India with someone who has experien...

This doesn't have anything to do with sports, but I figured I would post it anyway.  It's a list I created in 2006 during my first trip to India with my best friend Phil. I was on the top bunk of a sleeper train going from Mt. Abu to Jaisalmer and decided to make a list of what I learned in India during the few weeks I had been travelling around the country. It's a bit cheesy, but very true to me. The picture to the right is of Phil and I after a fun few hours of cricket and football with some local kids in Mt. Abu Rajasthan.  1. Family is the most important thing in life 2. Always be hospitable 3. The most beautiful thing in the world is a true smile 4. There can be beauty in poverty 5. Religion is about the SELF 6. Most activities are better when done with at least 1 other person 7. Personal growth is about finding ways to develop the mind, body and soul 8. Always be real no matter what people think 9. Striving and achieving pure independence is...

Before I left for India I had committed to my friend, Ethan Zohn, that I would run the NYC Marathon on behalf of Grassroots Soccer. Part of this commitment was to raise funds for his charity which uses soccer to educate youth about HIV/AIDS in Africa. Unfortunately I had to move before the date of the marathon. Since I made a commitment to Ethan and people had already donated money on my behalf I promised to run another long distance race in India. As luck would have it, I saw an advertisement for the Delhi Half Marathon in the newspaper once I arrived. I figured it would just be as easy as registering for the race and running it. This wasn't the case. Online registration was already closed so I went to the registration area at the mall with my friend Sukhi and his wife Tulika (who were already registered) and was told that there were no spots available. Hmm. No worries. I figured I would just show up and run. They expected 20K runners so I thought I could just slip by and run the...

I went to the championship match of the Mir Iqbal Husain Trophy. It's the national youth U-16 tournament. It happened to be held at a pretty nice stadium near my apartment in Gurgaon and our Dentsu sports team decided to go at the invitation of my good friend and AIFF Marketing Head Sukhi Singh (all pictured to the right). My fiance, Vanita, was in town and fortunately she was able to come as well which made it the perfect combination: Friends, Fiance and Football.  The first thing I noticed pulling up to the stadium was how much security there was. I never thought so many security guards were needed for a youth match but I guess anything can happen at any time.  I walked in and there were about a thousand people in attendance which is not bad for a weekday afternoon. Most of the people were kids and, from the buses outside, I could tell that they were brought in by their school.  Great idea by AIFF. There was decent talent and the team tha...

The title of this post says it all. I was fortunate enough to get invited to train with a professional soccer club in Kolkata. It was a beautiful day and I was definitely living out a dream of mine. I never thought that after just a few months of coming over that I would be able to enter the Indian soccer market as quickly as I have. Here is a picture of me looking completly exhausted in my uniform.  I had just scored a goal so underneath the pain in my eyes, there is a little boy jumping for joy.

I went to the FIH Field Hockey World Cup last night. India was playing Spain who are ranked 3rd in the world. Driving up to National Stadium in Delhi reminded me of when I went to Estadio Jalisco to watch a Chivas de Guadalajara match.  Hordes of people, tons of noises and complete lack of order. You had to go through about 4 different security checks and then finally you made it in. At the last minute, they decided to take everyone's change from their wallets. I looked at the bin and you could feed an entire Indian state with the amount of money that was in it. But something tells me that all that money is not going to feed the poor. The funniest part of the security process is that right outside of the gates to get into the actual stadium there is a concession stand that sells fast food.  When you buy a soda they put a lid on it like normal, but as soon as you walk the 10 steps to the stadium entrance they force you to take the lid off.  The whole thing was bizarre. Th...

When I first got to India the Australia v India 5 day cricket match was going on. I didn't have to work that first week so I spent every evening with the company guesthouse caretaker, Madan, watching the cricket match.  Initially, my purpose of watching was to learn more about the sport since I was going to be working in Sports Marketing, but I soon found myself 100% emotionally involved in the game. I was never more proud to be Indian.  It is a truly indescribable feeling to go from wandering the streets of Delhi seeing tremendous poverty, class differences and an endless supply of depressed, resigned looks on people's faces...to seeing a stadium of  Indians of all different socioeconomic classes celebrating together (with huge smiles and full of possibility).  If India won the match, we would typically go out and celebrate and it is like you have walked into a different Delhi.  People who were fighting on the streets earlier are now talking abo...