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Football rewind 2017: Khalid Jamil’s magic wand gives Aizawl FC wings
Aizawl FC, a club on verge of relegation, turned things around to emerge I-League champions this year.
When Khalid Jamil, after seven years as Mumbai FC coach, moved to Aizawl FC ahead of the 2016-17 I-League season, the northeastern club was expected to steer clear of relegation. In their debut season, Aizawl FC had finished second-bottom ahead of relegation-immune DSK Shivajians, and were reinstated to the top-flight for the new season only after the withdrawal of Salgaocar and Sporting Clube.
For seven years, Jamil had ensured Mumbai’s I-League survival despite modest resources. At Aizawl, he was believed to be the perfect man to guide the club to safety. What happened during the course of the I-League season is now well documented. Jamil and his boys scripted Indian football’s greatest modern-day underdog story as they edged out Mohun Bagan to lift the title on the last day of the season.
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Aizawl’s title run was backed by a near-flawless home campaign. Of their nine home games, the team won eight and drew one. With an emphasis on a strong backline, Aizawl conceded just three goals at home. The club’s Cinderella story brought India’s domestic football under the global spotlight and also put paid to Indian football administrators’ plans of turning the Indian Super League into a closed top tier. Facing the possibility of a backlash over plans of a forced relegation for the national champions as well as many other I-League clubs, these ideas had to be dropped.
The ISL, on the other hand, got a major boost when two-time I-League champions Bengaluru FC decided to jump ship. The club took a voluntary demotion from the top-tier of Indian football, keeping in mind the grand plans for the IMG-Reliance-owned ISL. The cherry on the cake for ISL was an AFC Cup qualifying spot, making it the first time that Asian governing body AFC and world body FIFA recognised a league that was being simultaneously run with the country’s top flight.
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While the uncomfortable arrangement in domestic football left many fans feeling uneasy, there was no such discomfort on the international front, where India enjoyed a fairly successful year. The men’s team qualified for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup after winning the first four games in the third round of qualification. It was a nice comeback for national coach Stephen Constantine, under whom India had lost to Guam and finished bottom of the group in the second qualification round. Skipper Sunil Chhetri continued to add to his goal tally, scoring crucial winners in 1-0 wins over Myanmar and Kyrgyz Republic to help India seal qualification.
The women’s national team, meanwhile, played its first international friendly in over four years. It began the year by winning the South Asian title, but ended up conceding 25 goals in their first three games at the 2018 AFC Cup qualifiers. Despite the visible indifference towards the women’s game, India did hold its first women’s league, with Bembem Devi leading Manipur’s Eastern Sporting Union to title.
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This was also the year India hosted the FIFA U-17 World Cup. Jeakson Singh became the first Indian to score a goal at a World Cup, across any age group, when he scored a towering header against Colombia in a 2-1 defeat in the group stages. Goalkeeper Dheeraj Singh’s saves, on the other hand, helped the hosts bow out with a respectable campaign. A few lapses aside, India proved to be a good host. The country also broke the overall attendance record for the tournament, and produced the second highest ever average attedance figures behind the 1985 edition in China.
However, the country finished bottom among the 24 teams, serving a reminder about the gulf in quality between India and some of the world’s best footballing nations. Keeping the events of 2017 in mind, it would be fair to say that there were more joys than disappointments throughout the year.
