BENGALURU: Most Indians affiliated with sport will know about Hyderabad’s contribution to cricket, tennis and badminton. But the relationship isn’t as straight-forward when people talk about football. It ought to be. Legendary names like Peter Thangaraj, Syed Nayeemuddin, Shabbir Ali and Victor Amalraj have come out of there. In recent times, there has been a stagnation of sorts. The glory days seem to have taken a backseat.
Now Hyderabad is Telangana’s capital and with the change, football has suffered the most. After last year’s winless campaign in the Santosh Trophy, Telangana, in a bid to reclaim their lost glory, hired Dhyan Chand awardee coach Ali. The former Mohammedan Sporting striker and coach knew about the condition but what he got was 100-odd players with 25 days to prepare for the tournament. The end result? Telangana lost to Karnataka 0-5 in the opening game of Group A South Zone qualifiers at the Bangalore Football Stadium here.
Had it not been for their goalkeeper Sri Kumar P’s efforts, the margin would have been wider. The result shows the gap between Telangana and other states but without competitive football, expecting a decent result is a luxury. Though Telangana has a three-tier league structure, it’s not very sound, says Ali. In the last decade or so, none of the players have played for the national team and that tells a sad story of the sport there. “From 2000 to 2013, football was played in court, not on the field. The infighting cost us. There was no A Division league for many years. Now we have Telangana Football Association affiliated to All India Football Federation (AIFF) but what we need is time,” said Chandra Shekar Prasad, Telangana’s team manager.
Ali, however, is determined to restore the glory years. In the short term, he wants the team to be competitive. “It’s difficult to choose players from a bunch when there is little to no competition at all, that too within 20-25 days. Then you have to pick U-21 players and have to have the right mix of senior and youth to compete properly,” said Ali, who led West Bengal to Santosh Trophy title. “We didn’t play well against Karnataka but there’s nothing much we could do. We are in the early doors and without competitive football, we are not in a position to assess players for a big tournament, which although isn’t very important anymore.”
For players, it’s another dilemma. With their place in Santosh Trophy squad, they can get government jobs and without it, football won’t be an option as no club from the state play in either ISL or I-League. The only club from the state is Fateh Hyderabad which play in the I-League 2nd division and it also ran into financial problems last year. “It’s difficult. We don’t know how to go about becoming a professional footballer. Without competition, we don’t even know where we stand,” rued Sri Kumar.
Results: Group A: Karnataka 5 (Rajesh S 7th, 69th, Liton Shil 18th, 68th, Shahabaaz Khan 83rd) bt Telangana 0; Services 4 (Arjun Tudu 20th, Nanish Singh 59th, Gautham Singh 72nd, Saji P 86th-OG) bt Puducherry 1 (Karthikeyan G 9th).
krishnendu@newindianexpress.com