Barefoot to Boots by Novy Kapadia

Author:Novy Kapadia
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789386815651
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2017-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

Apart from the Olympians, Kerala has consistently produced a number of great players. In 1960, C. Mustafa impressed for his home state Kerala in his first senior national championship, the Santosh Trophy in Calicut. He had quicksilver reflexes that enabled him to deflect goal-bound shots and is rated as one of the most agile goalkeepers in Indian football history. He represented India at the 1966 Bangkok Asian Games and five successive Merdeka Tournaments, 1964–68.

Another batch of quality international players from Kerala emerged in the latter decades of the twentieth century. These were defenders C.C. Jacob and M. Dayanand, both members of the Indian team which finished joint winners in the 1974 Asian Youth Championships in Bangkok. There was also M.M. Jacob who represented India in the 1976 Merdeka Tournament. Until the 1990s a host of renowned internationals like crafty inside-forward Xavier Pius (known for his quick turning with the ball), bustling striker Najeeb, the tall, imposing and reliable defender V.P. Sathyan, solid right-back Sharaf Ali, skilful winger C.V. Pappachan, goalkeeper Feroz Sherif, solid central-defender Jiju Jacob, left-back K.V. Dhanesh, and the brilliant duo of I.M. Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri emerged at regular intervals from Kerala. Ancheri, who first played for India in 1994, and was seen as a better prospect than Bhaichung Bhutia, was the last real superstar from Kerala.

K.V. Dhanesh first came into the limelight playing for Kerala in the 1995 Santosh Trophy in Chennai. Dhanesh impressed the then national coach Rustam Akramov of Uzbekistan with his tackling, aggressive approach, calm temperament and good positional play. He made his international debut in the 1st SAFF Coca-Cola Cup in Colombo in 1995. Since then he was in and out of the national team. Dhanesh was considered a reliable and competent defender and played as either right- or left-wing-back for the national team and for his club sides, FC Kochin and ITI Bangalore. The highlight of his career was being chosen for the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games as a reliable left-back, by erstwhile national coach Syed Nayeemuddin.

In the new millennium Kerala has produced reliable defender and renowned international Muttah Suresh. A schoolboy prodigy, Suresh first played for India in the pre-Olympics in 1999 in both Bangkok and Kolkata. He was especially noticed in the Santosh Trophy in April 2000, when the hosts, Kerala, reached the final but lost 0-1 to Maharashtra. Kerala’s success was largely due to some excellent defensive work by the twenty-one-year-old Suresh. He made his senior India debut in the Four Nations Tournament in the Maldives in May 2000. He then joined Mohun Bagan. A cultured left-back, he could also play as stopper-back and on the left side of midfield. His anticipations, timing of tackle and distribution were quite exceptional and made up for his lack of speed. A year later he moved to Mahindra United and from 2002–03 to 2010 played for East Bengal. His career blossomed under the coaching of Subhash Bhowmick and he played as central-defender during East Bengal’s glory years, when they won back-to-back NFL titles in 2003 and 2004, and the prestigious ASEAN Cup in July 2003.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.