‘Advertise the sport, study the great footballing schools’ - Brazil's World Cup-winner Cafu's advice to Indian football

Former Brazil captain Cafu on Friday said the Indian football will have to advertise the sport and study the great footballing schools to grow as a footballing nation. Despite being a country of 1.4 billion, India are yet to qualify for the World Cup, even after the FIFA expanded the tournament to 48 teams, thus opening new opportunities for smaller nations.

The 56-year-old Cafu pointed at how smaller nations like Curacao and Cape Verde “played on equal terms” with bigger teams in the FIFA World Cup 2026 In the USA, Mexico and Canada. While Curacao exited in the group stage, Cape Verde made it the round of 32 before going down fighting 2-3 against Lionel Messi's Argentina at Miami Gardens.

"Today, everyone plays on equal terms. You saw this in the World Cup, teams like Curacao and Cape Verde played on equal terms with all the big national teams," Cafu, who is the last Brazilian captain to lift the World Cup. said at an event in Pune on Friday.

"I think establishing this connection between these countries -- now that FIFA has expanded the World Cup, opening up space for other countries -- will be important for India as well," he added before emphasizing that India needs to advertise the sport at a global level.

"Popularise it, encourage it, encourage children to play football, advertise the sport, and study the great footballing schools," he said. Cafu also cited examples of Japan, South Korea and more. "To give a simple example: Japan, South Korea, and China did this.

"They brought in Brazilian coaches and Brazilian players, and began to popularise football. This caused these countries to grow, and China... and India has everything to do this too," he added.

How India can benefit from Brazil game?

Ranked 138th in the FIFA Rankings, India are set to host five-time world champions Brazil for the first time in a historic FIFA friendly on October 3 at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata. India will also play two more FIFA friendlies against Panama and Uruguay on September 26 and October 6 respectively.

Cafu said that the Blue Tigers will learn a lot from the game against Brazil, though he admitted to the significant gap in the rankings between the two countries. Brazil are ranked fifth in the world and exited from the FIFA World Cup 2026 against Norway in a round of 16 tie.

"We hope that Brazil and India can play a great game. It will bring many benefits to the Indian people and to the Indian national team, which will face a team that is a five-time world champion," Cafu said.

“Well, if you go by the rankings, there is a significant difference between Brazil and India, but football has modernised.” Cafu also said India should benefit from FIFA's proposed plan to expand the number of participating teams to 64 from 2030 World Cup onwards from the 48 in 2026.

Indian football schedule for FIFA friendlies

Indian football squad for FIFA friendlies

Goalkeepers: Albino Gomes, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Prabhsukhan Singh Gill, Som Kumar.

Defenders: Abhishek Singh Tekcham, Akash Mishra, Anwar Ali, Bijoy Varghese, Hmingthanmawia Ralte, Jay Gupta, Pramveer, Ricky Meetei Haobam.

Midfielders: Anirudh Thapa, Ashique Kuruniyan, Farukh Choudhary, Lalengmawia Ralte, Macarton Nickson, Mohammed Sanan, Ricky Shabong, Sahal Abdul Samad.

Forwards: Edmund Lalrindika, Irfan Yadwad, Manvir Singh, Rahim Ali, Ryan Williams, Vikram Partap Singh.

Head coach: Khalid Jamil

Four players have been named as reserves — goalkeeper Hrithik Tiwari, defenders Chinglensana Singh Konsham and Roshan Singh Naorem, and midfielder Suresh Singh Wangjam — and may be called up if required.