It is daunting task to imagine someone living in India who is not aware of Cricket. This sport is epidemic (and one of those ”good impact” of British ruling) which seeped through veins of Indian population through all those years and now become inherent part of the body itself. Everyone, at some point of time in their life, has come into contact with it in some or the other form.

You can also say the same about football for European countries, South America, Africa, Australian region and in Asian part Japan and Korea: covering almost all continents(+1 to Football for this). I myself played Cricket a lot but it’s just matter of choices. If you don’t have choices, you have to go with whatever available. With closing of Football’s league tournament ”inspired” IPL, taking place every year in India with only ”large money spinning” objective and start of Football World cup 2014 in Brazil, this is the best time to come up with comparison.

Following are  few points in favor of Football. Some of them are technical and logical, some of them are just for fun and all of them are belongs to my point of view. (If you are a fan of Cricket, be offended and start following Football)

• Time Frame: Even shortest and fastest format of cricket (T20) eats up 3 hours of your time which is still more as compared to football which lasts 2 hours, even considering break between halftime and extra time of Football. Time may not be any issue if your supporting team is winning at the end but investing 3 or more hours in a day and being on the losing side is total disappointment.
• Larger Time Frame: Football world-cup occurring every 4 years has timetable of not more than one month on whole, cramming 3-4 matches a day sometimes. Comparison to that IPL is taking almost 100% more time to choose winners with almost 2 matches everyday . This should be considered as inefficiency of the tournament. Still Cricket World Cup have much shorter time frame. (Considering the fact that Cricket World Cup organized by international body, it proves that Indians have lots of free time to invest in petty tournaments like IPL T20).
• Everyone Plays: Football is a game where everyone has to play their part by showing stamina and aliveness for the entire length of the game. Even referees have to be on their legs. (Consider umpires have to circle cricket ground every 5 or 10 hours 🙂
• Managers: Strategy and planning play bigger role in football along with real-time player performance and real-time management and strategy building. And that’s why managers are key factors in this sport. What formation to go for, Which players to play, in which position, when to introduce, defend or strike, who has which skill, what resources you have, how to use them, what are the strengths of opponents and weaknesses; Managers have to cop up with lot many of this to find right recipe to victory and imagine you have to do that for every match.
• Loyal Fan-base: Every sport have their niche audiences and fan base but I think football fans are at the top because they show zeal and fanaticism so strong that it can only be compared with religious fanaticism.I love seeing these people blurring out the line between craziness and sanity.
• Weather-free: Is weather having revenge on long time anticipated game ? Not to worry, football can be played in any season even with downpour.
• In football, players are penalized for their “unhealthy” behavior in the game itself through yellow and red cards.
• Football players have ample opportunities to  show off their workout sessions and hence six/eight pack Greek God body (inspiring the viewers to at least try  for the same).
• To play football personally, you need to have only 2 things (eliminating common necessities): full stamina bar and football (that is also one football and not many as compared to cricket balls).
•  Girls in the football audience can give tough competition to cheerleaders of IPL in terms of fashion statements. Typical Indian conservatism.

This is enough for now. So fetch all like-minded friends. Go to sports bar. Choose your poison and enjoy the most celebrated sport on earth.