When a pack of wolves travel, they keep their most able, trusted and fierce members at the front and at the back. The same can be said of a football team. While it is usually the strikers who are the subject of people’s admiration and adulation, there is a group of players who silently go about their business, almost backstage staffish in their conduct.
These are the defenders, the final line of defence in front of goal and pretty much the building blocks of any team. The Indian national football team has seldom produced defenders of note but every now and then there have emerged players of such quality and pedigree that it is worth our while to make a trip down memory lane and rejig our memories.
Here we take a look at the top five Indian defenders to have ever graced a football field.
5) Mahesh Gawli
A product of the Tata Football Academy, Goa’s Gawli began playing football at the age of 8 and quickly rose through the ranks to make his international debut at the tender age of 19 in a pre-Olympic qualifier game against Thailand.
The centre back never looked back and steadily amassed a massive 91 appearances for the senior national team until announcing a somewhat premature retirement in 2011. His playing career has been decorated with awards and honours including multiple I-League and National Football League titles with various clubs and four consecutive best defender of the I-League awards from 2004-05 to the 2007-08 season.
But the ones that Gawli and surely all Indians will be most proud of are the twin Nehru Cup triumphs for India in 2007 and 2009. It is also most fitting that Gawli played no small part in these wins, turning in probably the best performance of his international career in the 2007 Nehru Cup final, so much so that he ended up winning the man of the match award for his troubles.
PS: It cannot hurt an Indian footballer’s case if the only goal of his international playing career comes in an away game at a stadium in Pakistan!
4) Syed Nayeemuddin
When the creator gave us an atrociously talented and elegant football player with enviable Greek God looks, he was named Cristiano Ronaldo. Well, that is now, but Mr Syed Nayeemuddin was back then!
A man who could draw crowds into the stadium as much for his looks as for his skills with a football, Nayeemuddin is probably the most technically gifted defender to have ever donned the Indian jersey.
Nayeem was an integral part of the core of that oft reminisced about all-powerful Indian team of yore along with stars such as Peter Thangaraj, Shyam Thapa and Mohammad Habib, not unlike the big four or big five of the Indian Cricket team of the late 90s and 2000s.
Nayeem’s was a truly glittering career laden with prestigious trophies and honours, both at club and international level (for the record, he is both an Arjuna and a Dronacharya awardee; the only Indian footballer to have received both award till date) but the pride of this pacy wing back’s trophy cabnet is sure to be the 1970 Asian Games medal, the last time when India truly contested for continental supremacy.
Nayeem led his boys from the front and the Indian team displayed a brand of football rarely seen again from the Blue Tigers en route to an unprecedented silver medal. His was a performance to remember, one that has been and will be talked about for aeons and aeons to come.
Nayeem also had tremendous success as a manager, coaching every team he helmed to titles but ultimately fell on hard times due to lack of unemployment, leading him to say, “I’ve become a national beggar!”
However big his troubles may have been, Nayeem has always remained a gentleman par excellence, never compromising on his self respect. The most fitting praise that can be lavished on this Indian hero, who for the first time showed us the menace that can be an overlapping fullback on a football field, is something that he once said of himself, “Tiger kabhi ghaas nahi khata (A Tiger never eats grass!)!”
3) Gostha Pal
Undisputedly the best Indian defender of his era, Gostha Pal’s is a case of curious and curiouser. Discovered purely by chance shortly after the legendary Mohun Bagan IFA Shield win in 1911, Pal ended up with the Mariners in 1913. After a rather shaky start to his professional career, the 17-year old boy wonder truly lived up to his billing turning in an impeccable performance in just his second match against Black Watch.
After that match, Pal just went from strength to strength slowly evolving from a solid centre half to an exemplary one and ultimately into the first true Indian superstar defender.
A true blue centre half in every sense of the word, Gostha Pal’s defining attribute was his barefoot playing style. The barefoot bandit took on booted players from English clubs with stunning ease and intrepid courage, more often than not emerging victorious.
For 23 years, the Great Wall of China as he was affectionately christened by the football loving public donned the maroon and green of Mohun Bagan, playing the majority of his matches as the team leader.
Under the captaincy of Pal, Mohun Bagan first began to write the history books of Indian football, becoming the first ever Indian team to play in tournaments such as the Rovers Cup and the Durand Cup. The Rovers Cup final run of 1923, Durand Cup semi final run of 1924 and the pitch lie down of 1936 in a match against Calcutta FC to protest against dubious refereeing are just some of the incidents with Pal at the helm that have now forever gone down in Mohun Bagan and Indian football folklore.
Pal’s greatness was honoured in 1924 when he was chosen to be the first every Indian National team captain for an overseas match. What a way to create a legacy. A legacy that stands undented and untarnished.
2) Jarnail Singh Dhillon
The fearless Sikh, or the Punjabi Lion, call him what you want, Jarnail Singh Dhillon was hands down one of the greatest Indian footballers at all time. From containing opposition stalwarts such as Malaysian Abdul Gani (known as the Asian Puskas) and Hungarian Florian Albert (in the Olympic Games) toremaining unbeatable even when the goalie was beaten, Jarnail had done it all!
Today, the utility player or for that matter the centre back who goes forward for the dying moments of the match has become commonplace in football. In the 60s, when the world hadn’t yet witnessed the birth of total football, Jarnail Singh, an unassuming turbaned footballer from the sub continent of India embodied versatility.
It is this versatility of Jarnail Singh which makes him this author’s favourite player off this list!
Defenders are not often heard of linking up seamlessly with wingers and centre forwards (even Gerard Pique struggles though he tries), however, this is exactly what Jarnail accomplished in the semi final and final of the 1962 Asian Games.
Before the semi final, Jarnail sustained a server sut to his head and had to receive six stitches. The Indian coach at that time, the great Rahim Saab, realising that Jarnail would not be able to do his best work at the back but also realising the player’s importance to the team, decided to play him up front along with Chuni Goswami and PK Banerjee.
The move worked like a charm and who should end up scoring a headed goal but the lion hearted Sikh with a cut on his head! Stuff of legends indeed!
Quite uncharacteristically of the fighter that he was, Jarnail Singh passed away in 2000 at the age of 64 while visiting his son in Canada. A diamond that was found in the rough and polished to perfection; a diamond that shone bright like none other. Perhaps all that is left now to be said is, Shine on, you crazy diamond!
1) Sailendra Nath Manna
Known to all simply as Sailen Manna, one of the most able leaders the Indian football team has ever seen was also one of the greatest defenders the country has ever produced. A discovery of the Chinese Wall, Gostha Pal (see how the trend works here), Manna was best known for his thunderous free kicks and clean tackles.
He also followed the course set down by his idol and discoverer, the legendary Gostha Pal and played barefoot for most of his career. Perhaps the biggest testament to Manna’s talent is that he was never sent off in his entire career, a feat that sounds utterly unbelievable when heard for the first time.
Just ask a Mohun Bagan fan (any fan) about the greatness of Sailen Manna and watch the warmth with which they speak about this legend, a true Mohun Bagan Ratna in every sense of the word. In a game where no player’s relation with a club is ever secure, Manna reached new heights of longevity and loyalty playing 19 consecutive seasons with Mohun Bagan, from the start of his professional playing days to the absolute end.
With the Indian National team, Sailen Manna travelled to the 1948 Olympic Games in London where the Indian team narrowly lost their first ever international game 2-1 to France. It is a matter of pity that Manna, India’s first set piece expert somehow missed a penalty kick in that match. Just goes to show that even the ones we revere as gods, are after all human.
There was success to come however and under Manna’s captaincy, none less! Leader extraordinaire that he was, Manna led India to the 1951 Asian Games gold medal (our first major international win) and four consecutive Colombo Cup triumphs from 1952 to 1955.
In fitting tributes to the first great leader in Indian football, the Indian government conferred the title of Padma Shree on Sailen Manna in 1970 while in 2000, the AIFF named Manna as the “Best Indian Footballer of the Last Millenium.”
Although this stalwart of Indian football sadly passed away in 2012, aged 87, his legacy surely lives on.
