“Every World Cup draw is exciting, but the fact that USA is drawn into the same group as India is especially meaningful for me,” Gulati told FIFA.com in an exclusive interview.

“The overall tournament will be an inspiring event for the sport in India, and the chance for the US to help open the tournament on the first day is a special opportunity. Of course, with Ghana, a perennial power at U-17 level and Colombia in the group, it won’t be only about the US and India.”

“I think India’s made a lot of strides in football,” Gulati said. “It’s a big challenge there because it’s such a large country, it’s not traditionally been the number one sport and it’s also got a very diverse population. In those senses, it’s a bit like the USA. We’ve talked about this with the AIFF (All India Football Federation) leadership on some of the similarities with the challenge that we’ve had in the U.S. and that they’ve got here.”

“The U-17 World Cup is an important event because it’s a showcase event. You’ve got so many young players that become stars from this tournament and I think there will be fond memories for those players and the people watching them.

“It’s a great opportunity to see young players who aren’t constrained,” Gulati continued. “Maybe some of the discipline and pressure you see in senior team football is lost there, and I think that’s a good thing at this age. You don’t know who those stars will be, whereas in a World Cup you expect Messi or Ronaldo to step up. So many top players come through this tournament and I think it’ll happen again.”

“Christian’s obviously done very well for us,” Gulati said. “He was clearly a very good player, but I don’t think many would have predicted how quickly he became an important player for our national team and at Dortmund, who have a lot of very good players. He’s a great talent.

“We had Landon Donovan at New Zealand 1999, he was the Golden Ball winner there. DaMarcus Beasley got the Silver Ball in that tournament and he’s played four senior World Cups. Those are important names in our history and hopefully Christian becomes a very important name in our future.”

“I think I’ll skip my classes at Columbia [University] and come for that opening game!” Sunil Gulati laughed.

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