BENGALURU: A few years ago, stars of this stature, not so far removed from their prime, playing matches of consequence in India would have been unthinkable. But when Mumbai City FC line up for their home AFC Champions League group game against Al Hilal SFC, their opponents may include the likes of Neymar, Kalidou Koulibaly, Ruben Neves, Serge Milinkovic-Savic and Aleksander Mitrovic.
Apart from Al Hilal, Mumbai City FC also drew Iran’s FC Nassaji Mazandaran and Uzbekistan’s PFC Navbahor Namangan in the 2023-24 AFC Champions League draw held on Thursday. But even before the ceremony, all the chatter was about whether Mumbai would come up against one of the four Saudi teams in fray — the others included Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr and Karim Benzema’s Al Ittihad.
“It’s an exciting draw, and a very difficult one,” said Mumbai City coach Des Buckingham. “It would have been difficult regardless of who we pulled out of the draw. Our target would be to go and play the kind of football that we want to play, that we can play, that we did last year. We got three results in six games. We’ll be representing our club and our region but more importantly, we’ll be representing Indian football.”
While the mass exodus of stars from European top-flight to Saudi Arabia’s oil-money-fueled clubs have been subject to much criticism from Western media, it nevertheless brings a great deal of spotlight on Asian football. And for India, it means an opportunity to rub shoulders with some of football’s biggest names.
That opportunity might be a temporary thing though, with the AFC restructuring the Champions League format from 2024-25. The top tier in Asian Football will be the AFC Champions League Elite, which will comprise 24 clubs. India does not have a slot allocated for this event. The second rung will be the AFC Champions League 2.
The ISL champions will qualify for the group stages of this tournament while the Federation Cup winners will make it to the play-off. There is a chance to come up against a Ronaldo or a Neymar — one Saudi club will qualify for this tournament — but it will not be as pronounced as it is now. It will take sustained good performances by Indian clubs in this tournament to recapture their spot in the top flight.
Thursday also saw the draw for the AFC Cup take place, with Mohun Bagan and Odisha FC finding themselves in the same group, alongside Bangladeshi side Bashundhara Kings and Maldives outfit Maziya.