BHUBANESWAR: From playing with a football made of plastic sheets while growing up in the small village of Bhela in the undivided Kalahandi district to becoming the head coach of the U-19 Indian football team, Suvendu Panda has come a long way in Odisha’s football landscape.
“But coming from a district which was then known for its backwardness, I had my share of struggles in finding a firm footing in the game,” said Panda who is the first Odia to coach any Indian men’s team under the All India Football Federation. Last week he was appointed the head coach of the U-19 team and before that, he coached the U-17 Indian football team.
Growing up, he played the game with the boys of his village in a small playground. When he was in Class-7 at Dr Katju High School in Bhela, Panda was selected in the Kalahandi district sub-junior boys team which took part in the inter-district sub-junior football tournament at Kalinga stadium in Bhubaneswar. While he continued playing, Panda also topped the HSC examination in 1992 and his family decided to send him to the Capital city for an intermediate degree.
“I moved to Bhubaneswar to study and pursue the game but none of the football clubs in the city I approached offered me an opportunity to play. During my graduation, I got a chance to play in the Unit-6 football club and my professional journey as a player began from there,” said 46-year-old Panda who was a defender. He went on to join the Odisha Kishore Club at Bhubaneswar which was counted among one of top football clubs then.
Panda played in many national tournaments and represented Odisha in Santosh Trophy in 2001-02 and 2002-03. Although he took a break from football for a few years due to his father’s demise, he began coaching football players at Kishore Club in 2010. “I took up coaching because there was a need to guide the players and also create a pool of good footballers in the state for national teams,” he said.
A year later in 2011, he completed his Asian Football Confederation-C license coaching course to register himself as an official coach. He went on to become the coach of the Bhubaneswar team in the inter-district tournament the same year. The team won and there was no looking back for Panda. Feeling the necessity to keep himself updated on the evolving dynamics of football, he took up many new courses in football coaching and in 2016, Panda became the first from Odisha to receive an AFC-A license coaching certificate.
Under his coaching, India won bronze at SAFF U-15 Boys Championship in 2018. And in 2020 when he was the head coach of India U-17 football team, the Odisha government chose him as the OSD for the Sports and Youth Affairs department. Following this, not only did he bring important tournaments to Odisha but also led the Odisha team to participate in Indian Super League, U-17 World Cup, and Santosh Trophy. He also formed the Odisha Women’s League.
Having completed the AFC-C,B and A coaching courses, Panda will now be pursuing the AFC-pro diploma coaching course which is the highest degree in football coaching.