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To be fair; its not easy being in the eye of reporters most of the time. MS Dhoni has the reputation of being a cool level-headed guy. But I feel players these days are used to living in the bubble of an environment which they believe is helpful for their career. Since they are on the road for a number of days playing many formats of cricket; their public appearances are usually limited to sponsor assignments. Not being in regular touch with community could lead to them not able to relate to our judgement and experience of day to day life; and I feel we should cut them some slack here.However, I do feel Dhoni has brought back an unwanted culture in cricket; a player who wields a lot of power(not talking with bat in hand, which is great!). We see a lot of pundits and cricketers being effusive about his importance and impact. A lot of it is well deserved over a great career, but some I feel do justice to his hold in Indian cricket, more than to him. At some points in his career, he has showed signs of uncharacteristic behaviour than what we associate with Dhoni. Maybe this is due to playing all formats for a long time. The low point for me personally was the WC 2015 Semifinal v/s Australia. He was run out after bunting a ball straight to mid wicket for a pretty risky single. Afterwards in the presentation he said that there was too much left to do in that situation. That for me was something you don’t want to hear from a skipper in an occasion like WC Semi Final. Recent exploits in one day cricket show that situation was not unmanageable. But that’s just my personal opinion.But its not right to end on that note. MS has always been a gentleman on the field and a proper leader to his fellow teammates

A miracle.Warning : Long answer ahead. Better get ur Z’s before you venture forth.A club's popularity is limited by the popularity of it's league.We've got Mohun Bagan which is older than Barcelona and yet so small compared to the latter.It's a long road ahead. The trip is easy if the road is made of asphalt. So if the Govt does its job, then the task gets easier. Similarly if the Govt babus suddenly felt like doing something good then it's a good day for Indian football.If cronies at the Ministry of Sports and All India Football Federation have a sudden change of heart and really strive for a better game then we are blessed. The club owners will surely be willing to pitch in if it will bring them more moolah in the future. After all football is business for clubs. The thing is everyone wants instant success and personal benefit.We have to look towards Japan as a role model. In the early 1990s, a few people in Japan decided to revolutionize football in their country. Baseball was the most viewed sport in Japan and traditional sports such as Sumo wrestling, martial arts etc enjoying fair share of TV broadcast. Football was mostly played by amateurs in Japan and their league had players usually from South America. The old Japanese Soccer League was replaced with the J-League. It started with 10 company owned teams. And this started the phenomenal growth of Japanese football.The babus at the top wanted to achieve long term growth. They fully professionalised the league and later adopted the European style of table type championship rather than knock-out type matches. Smaller teams with no company sponsors were given incentives. They knew if they had to catch up to the big leagues they had to take things from the big leagues. They brought in star players and managers. Instead of relying on foreign players , the locals were given priority. The effect of a company on a club's name was lowered. Investments were made to scout and nurture local talent. In about 2 1/2 decades they went from 10 clubs to 38 clubs playing in a two tiered league.Japan and Korea have represented Asia in the WC and Olympics and have churned out stars like Honda, Park, Kagawa, Nagato etc.. That does speak a lot about these countries that have a fraction of India's population.You know the Super Bowl makes plenty of money right and it's just famous in America. And guess how much ISL can make if it has the same popularity here. Clubs should try to increase their fan base not just through winning trophies or fancy purchases and advertisements.They have to connect with people and make them love the club no matter who plays for them. There shouldn't be only a handful of diehard fans and some seasonal ones. A middle-aged uncle who knows nothing about football and whose daily routine of watching the news should feel like “Hey, how did my team do?” And switch to the sports channel.A proper tiering system will help players climb up the ladder. Sure we like foreign stars but we'd love of our players play like them too. A year long seasonal format should be adopted. The AIFF should rope in former officials from other top leagues and act on their advices.Construct big ass stadiums to house the surge of people who would fill every frickkin inch of it. The govt can help and also by sealing deals with banks and construction firms. Those seats and facilities better be sturdy, coz u know how much rough we get when pissed off.The better our league gets and also the better talented our national team are on the international stage the more famous we become.Bengaluru FC has to become a symbol for football here at Karnataka first and then people from other states will join too.(I have so much to add but I'm stopping here. I don't think many people would bear to read any further let alone till here.)The fans should support their club whether they win or lose , it doesn't matter because it's “their” club. That's the type of fan base you need to achieve.

This question is a gift for the Chess History Geek. If the length of my response didn’t let you know… I LOVE this question. Alas, it is difficult to answer.What do we mean by Important? Are we talking about theoretically important, (which would include many of the USSR Championships from the 1950s and 60s) important in the history of the World Chess Championship (all the Candidates tournaments), meritorious individual achievements, or important for the promotion of the game? In the course of chess history, all of these criterion are important, but here are what I think are the most important chess tournaments in history - with a certain amount of personal bias as well as a preference towards tournaments that affect the “grand narrative” of chess which often involves questions of “who is the world’s leading player?” and “who is the strongest chess playing nation?”.Patrick Daly, in his answer to this question, said, “Every new tournament is ‘The Strongest Tournament Ever’”. Due to the slow inflation of chess ratings over time, this is most certainly true - not to mention we are often guilty of recency bias. It is fair today that the most recent tournaments probably have the highest quality of play from a pure computer analysis standpoint, but that doesn’t mean that all the modern tournaments feature the best possible field for that time period. Due to recency bias, as someone born in 1983, I am excluding nearly all tournaments that happened after I was born - because generally speaking history needs some time to breath before we can speak authoritatively on this issue.Certainly tournaments like Linares 1993 and 1994 and Los Palmas ’96 are among the greatest of all time - but looking back with more years we shall see how much they stand out when compared to the events held in the years around them. However, I will still include San Luis 2005 because of its critical role in reunifying the World Chess Crown.Honorable Mention: Madrid 1575. - The Oldest Chess Tourney on Record.The first chess tournament on record was held in the court of King Philip of Spain in 1575. The famous Ruy Lopez was there, after whom the Spanish opening gets its name.1. London 1851 - First Major Modern International TournamentAfter the King’s Phillip tournament in 1575, there were a number of important chess matches in the following centuries, the first major international tournament would take place at the World’s Fair (Technological Exhibition) in London 1851. With this tournament, many organizers (including the chess legend Howard Staunton) were trying to unite the chess world and establish an official international governing body as well a regular international competition to test the world’s best against one another. The 1851 London tournament was won by the relatively unknown Adolf Anderssen, who would also win at the World’s Fair tournament in 1862 as well as Baden-Baden 1870.Honorable Mention: Baden-Baden 1870The 1870 chess tournament in Baden-Baden can be regarded as the first strong tournament. In comparison with the World’s Fair chess tournaments, three main changes were made: a) first chess clocks used[1] (20 moves had to be made per hour), b) draws counted as half points, c) only top international players were invited.Honorable Mention: Vienna 1873 - The debut/triumph of the Positional School.In Vienna 1873, William Steinitz would cement his reputation of the World’s leading (active) player (Paul Morphy was still alive) and debuted his “positional school” in theory and practice, eschewing the paradigm of the romantic tactics of the time.Honorable Mention: London 1883 - Prelude to the 1st World Chess ChampionshipJohannes Zukertort’s dominant tournament win at London 1883 helped to solidify his claim to being the world’s strongest player to set up the first official World Chess Championship Match with Steinitz in 1886.2. Hastings 1895*In My Great Predecessors, World Champion Garry Kasparov calls Hastings 1895 the most important tournament of the 19th century. Some historians call it the paradigm for the modern super tournament.Among the participants were the veterans Joseph Henry Blackburne and Henry Edward Bird, along with the young masters who were future title contenders like Janowski and Schlechter. Expected to finish at or near the top were new World Champion Emanuel Lasker, recently dethroned Wilhelm Steinitz, future WC challenger Dr. Tarrasch and recent challenger Mikhail Chigorin.However, the winner turned out to be the then relatively unknown American Harry Nelson Pillsbury who was playing in his first major tournament. The tournament was memorable for a number of masterpieces created and a very exciting finish with the lead changing hands in the last three rounds.3. St. Petersburg 1895/96 - The Fall of PillsburyThis tournament was a continuation of Hastings 1895, in that Chigorin, with the sponsorship of the St. Petersburg Chess Club, at the final banquet invited the top finishers at Hastings to play to an invitation only tournament in St. Petersburg beginning in December of that year. Dr. Tarrasch declined the invitation due to his medical practice, but Pillsbury, Lasker, Steinitz and Chigorin each played 6 games against the other three. Pillsbury was leading halfway through the event, and had he finished in form, likely would have emerged as the presumptive challenger for the World Championship. Instead, Steinitz would finish clear second, and would challenge Lasker to a rematch to attempt to regain the crown.The head-to-head matchups were intriguing. Pillsbury beat Lasker (3 1/2 - 2 1/2) and Chigorin (3 1/2 - 2 1/2) while scoring a horrible 1-5 (two draws, four losses) against Steinitz - a result that is even more remarkable when you consider that, outside of this tournament, Pillsbury had a +5-0=2 score against the first world champion! Lasker beat Steinitz 4-2 and Chigorin 5-1 but, as noted, lost his mini-match to Pillsbury.Equally intriguing were the varied fortunes of Chigorin and Pillsbury, compared with the consistency of Lasker and Steinitz. Lasker scored 5 1/2 in the first half, and 6 in the second. Steinitz scored 4 1/2 in the first half, and 5 in the second. Chigorin managed only one win and one draw in the first half of the tournament, but in the second half scored 5 1/2 out of 9, just a half-point less than Lasker. Pillsbury's reversal of fortune was even more dramatic: in the first half he scored five wins, one loss, and three draws to lead the field, but in the second half he obtained three draws, six losses and not a single win.Many explanations have been offered for Pillsbury's collapse. It has been said that he caught syphilis from a St. Petersburg prostitute, which caused his poor performance in the second half; it has even been suggested that he received the diagnosis of the disease on the day of his dramatic fourth-cycle encounter with Lasker. (Garry Kasparov My Great Predecessor Vol I, p. 135.) However, if Pillsbury was infected with syphilis in St. Petersburg, he probably would not have suffered any serious symptoms there. It is also unlikely that he would have been diagnosed as having the disease immediately after catching it; no blood test for syphilis existed in 1895-96. On the other hand, there is no question that Pillsbury was unwell during the second half of the tournament; many of his games had to be postponed.In an article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in January 1896 saying that Pillsbury was still suffering from "influenza" that had afflicted him during the second half of the tournament. The symptoms of second-stage syphilis are apparently not that different from severe flu; if Pillsbury had caught syphilis before the St. Petersburg tournament, the second stage might have manifested itself during the tournament. Alternatively, of course, he could have just caught the flu.It is worth noting that St. Petersburg posed unusual problems for a 19th century master. "Supertournaments" where every player was a leading master, like Wjik Aan Zee or The Grand Chess Tour today, were rare back then. Major international tournaments like Hastings or Nuremberg included a number of local masters, who were easy prey for the likes of Pillsbury, Chigorin, Steinitz and Lasker. But at St. Petersburg 1895-1896, there were no weak opponents. A master in bad form, like Chigorin in the first half of the tournament or Pillsbury in the second half, could expect no mercy.Honorable Mentions: San Sebastian 1911 and 1912These supertournaments, won in 1911 by Capablanca (his international debut!) and Rubinstein, respectively, put them forward as the presumptive challengers/heirs to the World title in the years leading up to WWI. Sadly, a match for the world championship would not take place until longer after the war in 1921.4. St. Petersburg 1914The St Petersburg Tournament of 1914 is sometimes known as “The Grandmaster Tournament” as Tsar Nicholas II named the top five finishers in St. Petersburg 1914 “Grandmasters of Chess”. (These were Lasker, Capablana, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall).The tournament featured the joint winners of the 1914 All Russian Championship and players who had won at least one major tournament. There were the veterans Blackburne and Gunsberg, established masters such as Tarrasch, Bernstein, Janowski, Nimzowitsch, Alekhine and Marshall as well as the World Champion Lasker and his two most prominent rivals, Rubinstein and Capablanca.The tournament was divided into two sections. The first stage was an all-play-all event with the first five finishers proceeding into the second stage, which was a double round all-play-all with the scores from the preliminaries being carried over to the final.It was expected that there would be a great struggle between Lasker, Capablanca and Rubinstein, but the latter failed to make the final, leaving Lasker and Capablanca to battle it out. Lasker was 1½ points behind Capablanca at the start of the finals but in the end ran out the winner by a ½ point, by scoring seven points from eight games.Honorable Mention: New York 1924This was one of the many tournaments which highlighted the introduction of the “hypermodern” school of chess. Richard Reti dealt Capablanca his first loss in a serious game in over eight years. Though he defeated Lasker in their original game, the ex World Champion, in spite of his age, still managed to finish atop the standings is the first major international tournament in the United States since before the first world war, with the field consisting of a “who’s who” of the time.Honorable Mentions: San Remo 1930 and Bled 1931After 1927, when Alekhine defeated Capablanca for the World Championship, the champion would refuse to play in tournaments where Capablanca was also invited. As a result, they would not meet again until almost ten years after their match in Nottingham 1936. In San Remo and Bled, Alekhine utterly dominated the field in these strong super-tournaments absent Capablanca.Honorable Mention: Nottingham 1936 - The Once and Future KingsThe 1936 Nottingham tournament is regarded as one of the strongest tournaments of all time, with five past, present and future world champions participating including Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, and Botvinnik. Capablanca would defeat Alekhine in their first game since 1927, and would finish at the top of standings along with Botvinnik. The moral victor, however, was Lasker, who finished in the top half the standings in spite of being 67 years of age - showing himself to be a world elite player for 40+ years.5. AVRO 1938* – The Changing of the GuardIn November 1938, a Dutch radio company AVRO organized and sponsored what was up to that time the strongest tournament ever held. AVRO brought together the World Champion (Alexander Alekhine) and every one of his major challengers, including Capablanca, Paul Keres, Mikhail Botvinnik, Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky, Max Euwe, and Salo Flohr. It ran from the 6th to the 27th of November 1938 with the players based in Amsterdam and each successive round played in a different Dutch town.The tournament schedule proved rigorous for the older competitors and Capablanca and Alekhine did not fare as well as might have been expected. Capablanca reportedly had a stroke during the tournament, which drasically affected his results in the second half. In the end, Keres and Fine finished in joint first place with Keres declared the winner as a result of a better tie-break score.6. Groningen 1946* - The Russians are ComingIn the fall of 1946, the tournament held at Groningen, Netherlands was a watershed moment in chess history. It the first major international tournament after WWII, and it marked the first time the Soviet Union sent a team of players to a foreign event. The dominant Soviet results confirmed the growing recognition of the great strength of Soviet players: Botvinnik finished first, Smyslov third, and Boleslavsky and Flohr tied for sixth. For Botvinnik, it was his first outright victory outside the Soviet Union, on his road to the World Championship; for Euwe, it was his last great international success.7. 1948 FIDE World Chess Championship TournamentWorld champion Alexander Alekhine died in March 1946. The World Chess federation “FIDE” then sought to take control of the World Championship title. They proposed a quadruple round robin tournament featuring former world champion Max Euwe along with the following candidates- Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, Mikhail Botvinnik, Paul Keres, Vasily Smyslov, and the winner of either the upcoming Groningen or Prague tournaments. However, due to negotiations with the Soviet Union, Miguel Najdorf (winner of Prague 1946) was excluded from the event. Shortly before the tournament, Fine dropped out due to academic commitments, and FIDE decided to stage a quintuple round robin, for a total of 25 rounds, with one player having a bye each round. Botvinnik clinched the title by round 22, finishing three points ahead of Smyslov, but not without controversey, as there were allegations that Botvinnik’s fellow Soviet players were pressured to throw games to him.This was the first time a tournament decided the undisputed World Chess Champion, and would not be repeated until 2008, sixty years later.Honorable Mention: Zurich 1953 Candidates Tournament - David Bronstein’s legacy.David Bronstein had won the Candidates tournament in Budapest 1950 and drawn his world championship match against Botvinnik in 1951. While the Zurich Candidates tournament may not have been the best ever, David Bronstein’s book and analysis of the games in that tournament remains one of the greatest chess classics ever written, and is considered the best tournament book ever produced. As a result, Zurich 1953, won by Smyslov, would be considered by many one of the greatest tournaments of all time.Honorable Mention: 1958 Candidates Tournament. The Brief Brilliance of Tal.Few chess players have ever captured the imagination of the chess world like Mikhail Tal. This tournament, held in three different locations, was perhaps Mikhail Tal’s greatest moment (although his Bled 1961 tournament almost got an honorable mention). Though Paul Keres succeeded to win his mini match against all the other seven participants in the 8 player quadruple round robin event, Tal was able to dominate the lower boards scoring an astounding +18 -4 =8 for 20/28, a full 1.5 points ahead of second place Keres. Of Tal’s four losses in the tournament, three were to Keres, making him +17 -1 =8 against the rest of the field. This was also the first Candidates tournament for the sixteen year old Bobby Fischer, who finished fifth out of eight behind Tal, Keres, Petrosian, and Smyslov, all of whom except Keres were future or former World Champions, but still lost all four of his games against Tal.7. Curacao 1962 World Championship Candidates - Russian Collusion.Tigrian Petrosian would win this tournament, finishing ahead of pre-tourney favorites Bobby Fischer and ex world champion Mikhail Tal. Tal was hospitalized for kidney failure during the event and had to withdraw.After the tournament, Bobby Fischer wrote a famous article in Sports Illustrated entitled “The Russians Have Fixed World Chess!” In that article, he accused the tournaments top three finishers, Petrosian, Keres, and Geller, of agreeing to make easy draws against one another to conserve their energy to play against him. He also accused Russian GM Victor Korchnoi of throwing games to the other players.While Korchnoi never threw any games, some of Fischer’s suspicions were correct. Petrosian, Keres, and Geller did indeed agree to make draws against one another, and as a result were able to work harder in their other games and did not finish in the top three by coincidence. This would lead to the World Championship system being changed for decades away from Candidates Tournaments and into a series of candidates matches.Honorable Mention: New York 1964 U.S. Championship - The Fischer KingBobby Fischer won the United States Championship eight times, and every time he was a participant beginning in 1957. In 1963/64, however, Fischer would perform a feat that had yet to be duplicated at any comparable event, scoring a perfect 11–0.9. Montreal “Tournament of Stars” 1979In the spring of 1979, organizers held a double round robin tournament in Montreal, Quebec called "The Tournament of Stars". The event was attended by ten of the very strongest grandmasters at the time, including the world champion Anatoly Karpov.The complete list of players was (in order of Elo): Karpov (2705), Portisch (2640), former World Champion Boris Spassky (2640), Larsen (2625), Timman (2625), former World Champion Mikhail Tal (2615), Hort (2600), Hübner (2595), Kavalek (2590), and Ljubojevic (2590). As a result, the average Elo rating for the tournament was 2622, making "The Tournament of Stars" one of the strongest tournaments ever organized at that time. The only two top-ten rated players missing were Bobby Fischer (who was reclusive at the time) and expatriated Russian GM Viktor Korchnoi (who was being boycotted to secure Soviet participation). Karpov would share first prize with the legendary Misha Tal.10. San Luis 2005 - FIDE World Championship TournamentIn 1993, World Champion Garry Kasparov and #1 Contender Nigel Short decided they wanted to break away from FIDE and form the PCA (Professional Chess Association) due to disagreements in philosophy as well as (credible) allegation of corruption. As a result, the World title was divided from 1993–2006, when it was reunified in the match between FIDE World Champion Vesilin Topalov and the traditional “Classical” or lineage World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who won the title from Kasparov in 2000.Until 2000, the chess world did not seriously consider the FIDE World Champion the “real” champion, because Garry Kasparov in addition to being the lineage World Champion was also head and shoulders the world number one on the ratings list. Things began to change when Kramnik won the title, particularly after his results began to decline due to ill health. Kramnik has a form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis. With Garry Kasparov retiring in 2005, and Kramnik having never been the world number one during his time as champion, the classical title did not have the same spotless credibility.For a number of years, the FIDE World Champion was determined by an annual “knock-out” tournament which, in the minds of many in the chess playing public, was not a format worthy of being used to decide the World Champion. To restore credibility to the FIDE title, a super-tournament was to be organized in order to reunify and restore the title to its 1993 authenticity.Eight of the world's strongest players participated, Topalov, Anand, Peter Svider, Alexander Morozevich, Michael Adams, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, and Judit Polgar (the first woman to ever compete for the World Championship). Of course the notable exception was Vladimir Kramnik. With so many top level players, everybody was expecting a very close contest, but this was not the case at all. Bulgarian grandmaster Veselin Topalov scored an extraordinary 6.5/7 in the first half, one of the greatest streaks in the history of championship-level chess. After securing such a large lead, he then drew every one of his games in the second half, clinching the victory with one round to spare.Kramnik refused to participate at the FIDE World Championship Tournament (2005), but indicated his willingness to play a match against the winner to unify the world championship. His next title defence in 2006, therefore, was a reunification match with the new FIDE world title holder from the 2005 tournament, Veselin Topalov.This tournament marked the first time the FIDE World Title would have credibility since 1993 AND would provide the proper road to reunification with a suitable FIDE challenge for the traditional title - in addition to the incredible performance by Topalov.. . .Now that I have finished my top ten list, let me try to demonstrate why it’s hard to talk about the best chess tournaments of all time when we consider the last thirty years. Let us look at the last four undisputed World Chess Champions, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, and Carlsen, and some of the “chess majors” they have won.Kasparov’s NINE victories at Linares, many of which were the “strongest tournament ever” up to that point. Kasparov won Linares in 1990, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005) and boasts three victories and Wjik aan Zee in 1999, 2000, 2001.Kramnik has won the Dortmund super tournament ten times, in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011, won Linares three times, 2000, 2003, 2004, and completed the original triple crown with Wjik aan Zee in 1998 in addition to winning the Tal Memorial twice (2007, 2009).Anand certainly deserves an honorable mention for winning the World Championship at the FIDE World Championship 2008, along with five victories at Wjik aan Zee (1989, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2006) three at Linares (1998, 2007, 2008) and three at Dortmund (1996, 2000, 2004) - the first chess player to win all three of these major super-tournaments.Carlsen has won Wjik aan Zee a record six times, 2008 (shared first), 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2018. Carlsen has never won a Linares tournament, but this was because the tournament went defunct after 2010, and Carlsen placed second in 2007 and 2009 when he was still a teenager. Dortmund no longer has the same prestige it once did, and Linares and Dortmund have now largely been replaced by the Grand Chess Tour.With so many chess majors now every single year, it can be difficult to assess which among them has been the most important, though Honorable Mentions still do stand out:Karpov’s Dominance at Linares 1994Las Palmas 1996. (Thanks to Vjekoslav Nemec for reminding me about this one).A SUPER super-tournament, featuring 6 of the top ten GMs (only the best of the best) reminiscent of St. Petersburg 1896. Kasparov won the 6 player double round robin by a full point with a +3 score, followed by Anand at +1, Kramnik and Topalov finishing even, and Ivanchuk and Karpov finishing -2.From Chessgames(dot)com.The Supertorneo Las Palmas held from December 9th to the 21st, 1996 was a Category XXI event. The world's six best players, including both World Champions, competed in a double round robin format. The participants were (in order of Elo): Garry Kasparov (2785), Anatoli Karpov (2775), Vladimir Kramnik (2765), Veselin Topalov (2750), Vishwanathan Anand (2735), and Vassily Ivanchuk (2730). The strongest tournament of the modern era (the only tournament with an average Elo of 2756), Kasparov emerged triumphant as "the best player in the world at that moment".Anand’s victory in the 2008 FIDE World Championship Tournament.Carlsen’s dominant performance at the Pearl Spring Chess Tournament in 2009 and Wjik aan Zee in 2013.Carlsen’s victory at the 2013 victory Candidates Tournament marked the first true Candidates tournament since Curacao 1962.Caruana’s Epic Performance at St. Louis (Sinquefield Cup) 2014.Since I was very tired when I wrote this, and I blitzed it out fairly late at night, I’m sure I’m going to have to go through it and proofread it for typos and mental errors, with apologies for any spelling and grammar mistakes in the meantime.