“I find it very interesting and exciting always,” says a 13-year old Saifullah, who plays as a striker for the Government Senior Secondary School (Amini) team, and said this when questioned about how difficult a challenge it is for them to travel for four continuous days and then play a game here in New Delhi.
Saifullah wore number ‘9’ on his back while representing the Lakshadweep team at the Subroto Cup International Football Tournament 2016, where his side was in a very tough group which included four other teams in Pool A – Manipur, Assam, Maharashtra, and Reliance FYC. The island team did not have the best of tournaments as they lost all their four games, starting with a 2-0 loss against Maharashtra.
Even though the school team from Lakshadweep failed to win any of their four games, the talent in their side was there for all to see – Saifullah was one of the many talented young players on show for them. However, inexperience was one of the factors which led to the team losing their games, as their coach, Mohammed Hidayathulla, selected a very young squad for the Under-14 level tournament.
The coach said, “We had a very young squad who played in this tournament as only a couple of players are 13 and one player is 11 years old. The rest of the squad is 12 years old and that made it hard for us to match the other teams.” The coach also told us about how his team, and the people living in Lakshadweep have to travel for two or three days by ship to Kerala, in order to buy everything except coconut and fish.
Hidayathulla explained that there are around 36 islands in Lakshadweep, and the largest island is only 4.8 square kilometers in area. He said that all the people living there have to travel by ship or boat at all times. “We have been living on islands all our lives, therefore it is not a new thing for us. We have to travel 220-440 kilometres to Kerela through ship to get everything for ourselves,” he said.
The coach also talked about how his team had to travel for four continuous days to get to New Delhi to take part in the Subroto Cup. Hidayathulla said, “We had to travel for two days on the ship to reach Kochi (Kerala), and then it took two more days to travel to Delhi by train. Hence, after four days of travelling, we reached Delhi on 13th September, but we were glad that the team got one day rest before we started the tournament as we played the match on 15th.”
“Football is the most played sport in Lakshadweep. There are several tournaments which are conducted at the school level and it was a dream come true that we came to play here,” Hidayathulla added.
Young Saifullah seemed excited that he came to play in a big tournament. He said, “I have been playing football since I was 6-7 years old, but have never played at such a high level before. My dream is to keep playing football and I want to be a successful striker.” The young player also said that he does not have a favourite club team and supports whichever team is playing on the television.
On being asked as to what the goal of the team was now, Hidayathulla said that he wants to see his side in the same competition next year after winning the domestic competition in Lakshadweep again. “We have young players in our team, therefore this was an important learning curve for them. I hope we will return next year with more experience and fully developed players.”
