Much like the men’s game, Indian women's football is in a difficult spot. Despite the milestone of qualifying for the AFC Women’s Asia Cup in Australia last month, the national team struggled through a rough campaign, including a humiliating 11-0 drubbing by Japan, not to mention a revolving door of coaches – nearly six in over two years.

While there have been occasional highlights – like Manisha Kalyan’s stunning free kick against Chinese Taipei – these moments remain few and far between. In fact, right before the tournament began, the team received kits in the wrong sizes. It took a last-ditch effort to arrange a kit through a local vendor to save them from total humiliation.

In the fourth episode of Let’s Talk About: Indian Football, Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with two people entrenched in the women’s game: Raman Vijayan, former national team player and current head coach of Gokulam Kerala in the Indian Women’s League (IWL), and Dalima Chhibber, a player with over 50 caps for India and captain of Kickstart FC.

“Women footballers can reach the top level – even ahead of the men – because we have talent. But the grassroots program is not happening at all. Where is proper [grassroots] development happening for girls?” asks Raman. 

However, Raman notes that the problem in the women’s game is more deeply rooted. “I've experienced this at the IWL recently. Many of the players don’t have basic skills. We never taught them properly. They are not properly trained and are not put through proper youth development programs. We need a proper youth development program.”

Beyond coaching, Dalima Chhibber highlights environmental and structural barriers. A Delhiite herself, she admits she wouldn’t open an academy in the city because of the toxic air quality. “We shouldn’t think it is okay to live with such conditions,” she remarks.

For Dalima, the solution is simple: building a culture of sports and accessibility to world-class facilities. “If you want to develop world-class athletes, you need world-class facilities. There’s no other way… The US performs well because it has a culture of sports that extends from schools to universities. We see our athletes going outside India to use better facilities to improve; those are the players who come back and win medals for the country.”

Watch the full episode here.

Produced by Ashish Anand. Edited by Satish Kumar.