Sunday, January 17, 2010

Pictures: South Asian Football

The population posts from last week got me thinking about South Asian Football, an easily overlooked region of world soccer. Nearly 25% of the world's population lives in South Asia, but due to a variety of reasons (war, lack of resources, cricket, etc.), none of these nations have been able to climb up the world soccer ladder. Sleeping giants?

These photos show the national stadiums and a recent photo of the national teams from the South Asian region.


















India - Rank: 134




Maldives - Rank: 137





Nepal - Rank: 152









Sri Lanka - Rank: 151

Posted by Steve at 7:32 PM
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1 comment:

  1. gsankar05April 10, 2010 at 4:04 AM

    very good blog post. notice how 5 of the teams are in the 150 or rank. war is not the reason for low ranking, the teams in this region suffered when most asian teams started professional leagues in the 1970's and 80's. football is mostly an amateur game as there is not much money to sustain professionalism. which is why all the club teams stumble when competing against south-east asian teams let alone east asian and middle eastern 'giants'. more the failure, less the interest and less the interest less the money in the game. its a vicious circle for 50 years and no chance of changing in another 50. club failure also contributes to low ranking not just internationals.

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