Live India, Love Football

Anyone in the agency world can say that there are some projects which make you cry out and say, “Why me???” However then there those few projects which when you stop to look around you realize that it couldn't be more perfect. The Budweiser 6v6 Cup project I’m working on fits into the latter.  Football, fun (which means beer in this case) and fulfilling dreams of amateur footballers; 3 of my favorite things in life blended together into 1 awesome consulting project. We have only completed the Delhi leg of the 6v6 tour which includes a National Final to determine which team goes on to London to represent India in the Global Beer Finals.  So with that, I won’t give my usual, boring recap and commentary of my experience with the project however I’ll let some of the pictures I took from the Delhi leg speak for themselves. I will say that this tournament is the perfect platform to begin to connect the dots within the Indian football industry which is unfortunatel...

As a football consultancy, it is our duty to stay one step ahead of the industry when looking at the future of Indian football. For the longest time people have only mentioned three (3) places as opportunity markets for Indian football: Bengal, Goa, Kerala and now you can throw in the Northeast where a lot of talented young players are coming from. While all of these locations are truly football markets, we believe that talent and opportunity also lies in Tier 2 markets such as Indore, Baroda, Kanpur, Nagpur, etc… For this reason, I’ve been spending a fare amount of time visiting these places to better understand the football opportunity within the city limits.  The other day my colleague Sweekar and I took a night train into Kanpur, a city which is in the state of Uttar Pradesh.  I’m always overcome with a twinge of nervous excitement when I travel to these places which are off the beaten tourist path since I know that my trip will be a series of small adventures whether...

The other day team Libero Sports India played in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Corporate Soccer Festival.  A year ago we played in the same event and lost in the final to a strong Barclays team. I scored 15 goals in 5 matches and proudly received the Golden Boot award from Coca-Cola India CEO Mr. Atul Singh. The whole tournament was incredible for me both personally and professionally as I regained my confidence as a player and made a name for myself within the Delhi football community.  Unfortunately things didn’t work out as well for me or Libero Sports India this year. We started off strong beating Pepsi and NTPC with ease even with our office housekeeper, Prakash, playing goalkeeper. I scored a few goals and felt my touch again.  Our quarterfinal match on Sunday morning was against WNS who were considered the best team in the tournament. We knew that if we beat them we would easily go on to the final.  After being up 1-0 for most of the match, w...