Whether the trailer of the Ajay Devgn-starrer Maidaan doesn’t give away much or reveals a lot about the story, depends on who is watching it. If you are one of the rare few in a cricket-crazy country who knows the history of Indian football, you will immediately connect with the fact that Devgn is playing the role of legendary football coach Syed Abdul Rahim – the chief architect of the period that can truly be called the ‘Golden Age of Indian Football’.
True stories from the sports fields make for thrilling movies – especially if it ends in a glorious victory for the underdog fighting against all odds – because of the range of emotions the roller-coaster ride of the protagonist’s journey takes the viewers through. The story of Rahim’s boys had all the right ingredients – from official apathy to heroes battling it out after debacles and rising again to become the top team in the continent (Iran, Japan, South Korea, China were the other strong teams in Asia at that time).
Mention ‘Rahim Saab’ and the dreamy eyes of every octogenarian football fan in Kolkata still light up – despite the fact that his reign as the chief of Hyderabad football was the first time in the history of Indian soccer when the dominance of the Kolkata giants was being seriously challenged. Rahim became the manager of Hyderabad Police and the Indian national team in 1950. During his tenure, Hyderabad Police won the Rovers Cup five times in a row from 1950-54 and the Durand Cup four times. After refusing to participate in the 1950 FIFA World Cup, then known as the Jules Rihmet Trophy, India won gold at the 1951 Asian Games, beating a strong Iranian side 1-0 in front of a packed home crowd in Delhi, with Prime Minister Nehru in attendance.
India’s journey to the pinnacle of Asian football became possible only because of the tactical brilliance of their coach. In a 1955 interview to The Indian Express, the visionary Rahim talked about the need to train the trainers if India wanted to become a formidable team internationally. Sending footballers to foreign countries for short-term training, according to him, would ‘do no permanent good’ to football in the country. He also despised the British style that concentrated on ball possession and dribbling, with the attackers thriving on long aerial balls. To develop fast passing and combination play, he started ‘one-touch’ football tournaments. Rahim also started a ‘weaker-foot’ tournament where the players could only use their weaker foot for passing and scoring goals. When the rest of the country was still playing the archaic 2-3-5 formation, the revolutionary coach opted for the 4-2-4 system that was made popular much later by the gorgeous Brazilians in the 1958 and 1962 World Cup. A man far ahead of his time, Rahim could think out-of-the-box and was always ready to try out new tactics. So, it is hardly surprising that three of India’s greatest managers in the post-Rahim era — namely PK Banerjee, Amal Dutta and Syed Nayeemuddin — were all mentored by none other than Rahim Saab himself.
Following the 1952 Olympics debacle, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) was initially reluctant to send the team to the Melbourne edition four years later. But Rahim was confident and He was not afraid to drop established stars like Sheoo Mewalal – the hero of the 1951 Asiad. The average age of the young team he selected for Melbourne was just 23 – retaining only S. K. Azizuddin and Muhammad Noor from the ’52 team. Impressed by the peerless Hungarians, he introduced a withdrawn centre-forward in the form of his captain Badru Banerjee – the forward who would come down among his midfielders, confusing opposition defenders.
At the 1956 Olympics, Rahim Saab went for the three-back system. On a bright December morning in Melbourne with the temperature hovering in the pleasant mid-20s, the Indians faced the much stronger-built Australians in the big quarter-final at the iconic MCG. They were a bit sluggish, to begin with, but shocking the home crowd drew first blood as early as the 9th minute – a thunderous drive from skipper Banerjee, who played for Mohun Bagan back home, hit the woodwork and the Bombay striker, Neville D’Souza, showing his poacher’s instinct, nodded home the rebound. D’Souza scored a hat-trick in the match – the first one by an Asian at the Olympics – and India won 4-2 to enter the semi-final, which is still India’s most significant achievement in world football. The impact of this Indian performance was so strong that FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous visited the Indian dressing room and praising Rahim’s farsightedness, declared that Indian football had arrived.
By 1962, the team Rahim came up with was undoubtedly the best in Asia. Under the bars was the imposing figure of Peter Thangaraj. The forward line consisted of PK Banerjee, with his thunderous shots and expertise in taking those swerving defence-splitting corners, the glamorous Chuni Goswami with his superb off-the-mark speed and the skilful Balaram. In the defence, apart from Jarnail Singh, there was Arun Ghosh, who excelled in brilliant double-footed tackles. The midfield had Prasanta Sinha, Ram Bahadur and Mariappa Kempaiah. And then there was Yousuf Khan – a true ‘all rounder’ who was ready to play in any position assigned to him on the day of the match. Rahim loved his players and he knew the precise positions where he could use them. Also, he had this uncanny ability to see alternate realities. For instance, he played Jarnail Singh of all people who is probably the finest Indian defender ever, as centre-forward in the 1962 Asian Games final. And the gamble paid off as Jarnail scored India’s second goal in front of a hostile 100,000 -strong Jakarta crowd.
Suffering from cancer, Rahim Saab had less than 10 months to live after that day. The night before the final, he couldn’t sleep and his team found him smoking in the hotel lobby. Together they took a short stroll on the streets of Jakarta. When they returned, before wishing his boys a good night’s sleep, an emotional Rahim asked for one final gift from them – a gold medal the next day. India won the match 2-1. Rahim walked away from the limelight on to his death bed. He passed away on June 11, 1963, at the age of 53, and as Fernando Fortunato said, took Indian football with him to the grave. The decline of Indian football happened quite dramatically after he was gone. Even the tournaments started by Rahim for the development of specific skills were discontinued a few years after his death.
Today, no one remembers India’s hat-trick hero Neville D’Souza anymore. Also, there is hardly any mention of the golden generation of the Mohammed Zulfiqaruddins, the Abdul Latifs, the Muhammad Noors and the Yousuf Khans. Hyderabad has ceased to exist on the Indian football map. In recent years, the ISL franchise team from the city could hardly fill the stands in their home games. And what about Syed Abdul Rahim? He remains the forgotten prince of a forgotten fairytale. When things don’t go well, you fall back on memories of those ‘good old days’. But what happens when you erase those very memories? The youngsters who worship Messi and Ronaldo aren’t aware that 60 years ago, as Novy Kapadia once said, a Mohun Bagan versus Andhra Police game would have 22 of the best Asian footballers playing on the same pitch. While the practical benefits of nostalgia and ‘living in the past’ are debatable, it remains to be seen whether the much-awaited Maidaan lives up to its promise of recreating that golden era.
Barefoot Boys: History VS Myth
Mohun Bagan beat East Yorkshire Regiment to lift IFA Shield: The barefoot Bengalis of Mohun Bagan captured the imagination of an entire nation that was fighting for its freedom from British rule when they defeated the ‘gora sahibs’ of the East Yorkshire Regiment in the final of the IFA Shield in 1911. In the first Olympics after Independence, at London in 1948, the Indians, led by T. Ao, mesmerised the crowd at Ilford with a magical display in which they went down only by a last-minute goal against a strong French side. Pretty Princess Margaret was thrilled watching this performance and legend has it that she asked their saint-like defender Sailen Manna how come they weren’t afraid to play that way against their booted opponents. Manna-da didn’t tell her that the real reason was the poor Bengali boys could hardly afford boots. But playing barefoot did hurt – especially against the British and Anglo-Indian sides who knew how to use their shoes to uproot the toenails of their opponents.
By the time India got an invitation to play in the 1950 World Cup, FIFA had made boots mandatory at all of its competitions. India didn’t send its team, but unwillingness to wear shoes was not the reason. Although the Kolkata boys were still not accustomed to playing with boots, the players from Hyderabad, Maharashtra and Bangalore were quite used to it by then. The actual reasons for not sending the team were that the Union government had refused to support the trip and the AIFF had the rather bizarre notion that participating in the Olympics was more prestigious than the FIFA World Cup!
