The Perfect Storm

The last time India participated in a global football competition was in 1950, when the national team was invited to the World Cup in Brazil – and we withdrew because our players were not allowed to play barefoot. Now, 67 years later, India’s all set to host the FIFA U-17 World Cup.

 

- Bhanuj Kappal

Growing up in the small, isolated village of Tinburbung in West Sikkim, Komal Thatal would have been hard put to imagine that his love of football would one day take him all over the world. The son of two tailors hailing from a Dalit community, Thatal displayed a penchant for kicking things around the courtyard at an early age, starting with lentil grains and graduating to a balled-up rag by the time he was four years old. Maybe it was in his genes. His father had been a centre forward himself, playing in school before the lack of opportunity and an early love marriage made him hang up his boots. But by the time Junior Thatal started showing signs of real talent, scoring for fun in local inter-school competitions – including nine goals in one particularly memorable semi final – things were different. He got picked up by the Namchi Sports Hostel, a residential academy that has produced players like North-East United defender Nirmal Chettri and Mumbai City mid elder Sanju Pradhan. Since then, the milestones have come at a brisk pace – from being picked for the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) U-16 Regional Academy in Goa at the age of 14 to becoming the first Indian to score against Brazil at the BRICS U-17 tournament in Goa a few years later. But all that pales in comparison to what is still to come for the mid elder many are already calling the “blue-eyed boy of Indian football”. Starting October 6, he – along with 20 other compatriots – will represent India for the first time on one of the biggest stages in world football: the biannual FIFA U-17 World Cup. And he’ll do it at home, in front of thousands of adoring Indian fans at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi.