A good start

The first edition of the Nagaland Super League (NSL) 2025 proved a runaway success going by the response from the football-crazed fans and the performances of the seven competing teams. While the matches in Kohima did attract a moderate crowd, it was a totally different story in Dimapur where fans packed the stadium of around 3000 capacity in Chümoukedima at every match. The number of spectators rose dramatically from the semi-finals onwards where the stadium was packed to capacity. The final broke the record when the number of football-crazed fans climaxed to around 5000 in the final match on April 1. Every conceivable space was occupied by thousands of fans who stood throughout the match and hours before the start. Even as early as 12 noon, thousands of football fans queued up for tickets for the match that was to commence at 7 p.m. According to offocial sources, the first edition of the NSL featured seven teams with a total of 45 matches played and over 140 goals scored. In the final, fancied and veteran campaignere Barak Football Club demolished ‘Dark Horse’ Longterok Football Club by 3-1 goals. Barak FC players were clinical in their approach and probably after having drawn one game and losing 0-1 to Longterok in earlier league encounters, much homework was done to counter a newly formed Longterok FC. It proved to be a combination of experience plus methodical play that saw Barak through with neat passes of the ball and space dominance which left their less experienced but talented rivals psychologically unprepared. Nagaland is at the bottom rung of football in the north east, a state which in the 70s till early 80s produced match winners under IGP XI. The downslide of Nagaland footballs corresponds to the rise of the game in Mizoram, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and of course, India’s sports giant Manipur. Considering the fact that Nagaland’s Dr.Talimeren Ao led the first Indian Olympic football team at the 1948 London Olympics, it is only expected that his legacy would be continued. However, lack of organised regular league matches, stadiums with just basic playing field conditions and simple seating galleries have added to the downslide of the game in Nagaland. In the recent years, Nagaland continues to struggle to regain its lost footing but the infrastructures are still far from being complementary. Though cricket has become a starry and attractive game thanks due to mega television coverage, football still remains at the hearts of millions of people. India with a population of 140 crore is currently ranked 127th out of 211 countries under FIFA while countries like Burkina Faso ranked 55th under FIFA has less than 2 % of India’s 125 crore people or Croatia ranked 18th with hardly 4 crore people or Iceland with 3.34 lakh people is ranked 22nd.. Football needs to be based on grass root foundation and a league system that promotes and rewards talented players. The NSL now has to go deeper in developing and promoting grass root level football where young children can be brought up. The most important issue: It will take time, but Nagaland will have to get to being at least among the top three in the north east. This require the involvement of the masses and not just the officials or the government.