SACHIN - BHUTIA

Arindam: - Hello “Mr. Sachin Tendulkar”, Thanks for coming to our show “Wine with Arindam”. How is your back-pain now?

Sachin: - Oh!, my back –pain is ok now. I am absolutely fit.

Arindam: - Let me introduce to another famous person “Bhaichung Bhutia”.Sachin: - Ya, I know, he is a football player.

Bhaichung: - Thank God!, at least, you know me. Can we start drinking the wine?

Sachin: - Aaila, Wine, I like it, but I prefer “Champagne”.

Arindam: - Sir, we will surely plan for that drink, in our next version of our show.

Sachin: - So, Bhaichung, when is your Indian football team going to qualify for the World Cup?

Bhaichung: - I think, we can never achieve that feat. The poor infrastructure and negligence towards this game in India, is the major reason. And the worst part is that there are hardly any big sponsors for football game.

Sachin: - Hmm. It’s true. Cricket is like a religion in this country, but hardly people are interested in football or football players.

Bhaichung: - No, I disagree to that. There are more football fans than Cricket fans in India. Otherwise, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Beckham, Zidane and others could have never got so much praise in India. But the point is, if your national team cannot perform, they why the hell you will support. As simple as that. Today, we are having big heavy-weight football clubs like ‘Mohun Bagan’ and ‘East Bengal’. But, can you count, how many Indian players are playing in those clubs. Around 80% people are from Brazil, Ghana or other African countries. So, when it comes to selection of Indian Football Team, we hardly get any good players from these clubs.

Arindam: - You want these clubs to take more Indian footballers. Well, Goan football has improved a lot. We have lots of good players from that region.

Bhaichung: - Ya, it’s true. Probably, if the AIFA decides to reduce the number of foreign players from each clubs, then we will at least get some good Indian footballers.

Sachin: - In Cricket, we are not facing any problem, because there are good infrastructures. At this juncture, we are getting lots of Young players, who can just produce wonders. I am really optimistic that, in the next World cup, we will be having a great cricket team, to lift that cup.

Bhaichung: - Best of luck to the Indian Cricket Team.

Sachin: - You know something, we also play football, in our training time. We really enjoy it. Sometimes, I wonder, to fight with your opponents for 90 minutes, how much stamina you require, and our Indian footballers have less stamina, in respect to the European footballers.

Bhaichung: - in this polluted Indian environment, the food, our players intake, is not enough to generate that stamina. Not only has that, more than 85% footballers come from poor families or from remote villages, where they hardly get foods, twice a day. But still we are hoping to play at least one World Cup. I don’t know when.

Arindam: - It was a nice discussion today. Thanks to both of you for coming here. Good Bye for now.