For most of the time, football in India feels like a night without end. Corporate interest veers from sporadic to apathetic – profit, at least the possibility of one, overtrumping passion –infrastructure is inadequate, the season short and interest from broadcasters lukewarm. All of this contributes to good performance being rare.
Result
India has more followers of football than hockey and badminton put together, according to that report released last September by the union sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya. Antonio Lopez Habas didn’t have a good time in Asia with ATK Mohun Bagan, having won only one game against a foreign team in the AFC Cup. And yet, football matters. Can East Bengal change that? At ATK and then ATK Mohun Bagan, Dheeraj Singh played one match in two seasons.
At 300 million, it continues to be the second-most followed sport, one that is growing at 25%, as per a KPMG report. How East Bengal manage a heavier schedule in physical and financial terms will decide whether they can emulate or better their run to the semi-final of Asia second-tier tournament in 2013. India’s tryst with AFC Champions League 2 has been restricted to Mohun Bagan Super Giant playing hooky and FC Goa failing to get a point from the group stage. So, Rathi stayed on playing 61 minutes in 2021-22, 12 the next term, 142 minutes over nine games in 2023-24 and 46 minutes in 2024-25 before moving to NorthEast on a free. He then played 53 games for FC Goa and on rejoining Mohun Bagan in 2024-25, again played once all season. It may not be a coincidence that along the way, the goalkeeper in the under-17 World Cup lost his place in ISL.
And for a long time on Wednesday, it looked like the dry run would continue.
Key Moments
Football grows only when clubs and national teams compete in international tournaments. Deep runs by East Bengal men and women and FC Goa will also help India go higher in the AFC Club Competitions Ranking. He was one of India’s finest forwards, one whose never-say-die spirit was what East Bengal showed against Al Arabi SC.
FC Goa will also compete in the AFC Challenge League, a competition where East Bengal made the quarter-final in 2025. Since this is an Independence Day wishlist, it would be remiss of me not to mention Mohammed Habib who died on August 15 in 2023. The former India captain (pre-Olympic tournament in 1972 in Rangoon, now Yangon) was also responsible for grooming future internationals at Tata Football Academy (TFA) and coaching them at Mohun Bagan.
Individual and team impact
That can help explain why FC Goa earned nearly ₹ 4 crore through gate sales for the game against Al-Nassr and why Jamshedpur FC’s decision to pull out led to supporters marching in protest. And why nearly 18,000 fans braved heavy rain, and the disruption it causes to life in a metro, to see their team on a mid-week evening. Rathi was adjudged emerging player of ISL in 2019-20 when he was 18. Habas would regularly prefer the young central defender to Anas Edathodika who had played most of his 28 matches for India by then.
Last term, East Bengal won a match in the group stage among Asian elite. Head coach Anthony Andrews will hope to at least match that. For that, East Bengal will have to win their group in Malaysia. The news of Sumit Rathi joining a club in the third tier in the UAE is more than a player’s career going backwards. It is also a lesson on what a club should not do especially in India where the players’ pool is small.
Having retained the IWL title, East Bengal’s women’s team qualified for the Asian Women’s Champions League preliminary stage and will start their campaign in Malaysia on Monday.
