Category: Featured Stories

More than 11,000 fans packed the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for a six-goal thriller as Shillong Lajong and Langsning traded blows in a dramatic derby, with Lajong eventually advancing to the quarter-finals and Langsning bowing out after a night of remarkable resilience. There are football matches that are won and lost. And then there are matches… Continue reading A Night Shillong Will Remember: Lajong, Langsning and a Derby for the Ages

In the narrow, football-mad lanes of Downtown Srinagar, nicknames are rarely handed out without reason. For Shakir Ahmad Sheikh, the name “Pogba” was earned on the football field through power, personality and a habit of finding the net from distance. Long before the nickname became familiar in Jammu and Kashmir’s football circles, Shakir was simply… Continue reading Shakir Ahmad Sheikh: The Pogba from Downtown Srinagar waiting for an opportunity to shine

When Everbrightson Sana walks onto the football field, there is little to suggest that one of Indian football’s brightest young forwards almost walked away from the game altogether. Today, the 23-year-old Shillong Lajong striker is among the most exciting attacking prospects in the country, having earned admiration for his movement, finishing and relentless work rate.… Continue reading Everbrightson Sana: The accidental striker lighting the way for Shillong Lajong

The heat is the first thing Debanjan expects to miss noticing. Kolkata in August is not summer but monsoon, and the two are not the same kind of punishing. It is a wet, breathless heat, rain-soaked air that wraps itself around a person like a towel that never quite dries, the kind of humidity that… Continue reading The fair where nobody loses: A football fan’s Durand Cup education in Imphal

Ranchi had already seen enough. Rodriguinho, on his first start for SC Delhi, had put five past Defenders FC, and the Birsa Munda Stadium had settled into that pleasant stupor grounds fall into once a scoreline stops being in doubt. Then, in the 85th minute, something smaller happened. A late change, a fresh pair of… Continue reading Uncut Diamond: Sixteen years old, stepping into 138 years of history

The Khuman Lampak Main Stadium has hosted its share of dramatic afternoons this Durand Cup, but few visitors arrived quite like the one who trotted out on Sunday with her nose to the grass and a fully loaded sense of purpose. She was a German Shepherd, part of the Indian Army’s K9 Warriors, and for… Continue reading The Warriors with four legs: Indian Army’s K9 Unit showcases operational skill at Durand Cup

Brazilians have a word for football played with soul rather than just intent: joga bonito, the beautiful game. It is not a phrase reserved for World Cup finals or Copacabana beach kickabouts. It is a philosophy, drilled into players from the moment they first touch a ball on a cracked concrete court, where the games… Continue reading Five goals, one debut: Rodriguinho’s belief in the SC Delhi project

There are football clubs that arrive at a tournament hoping to make up the numbers, and there are those that seize the occasion as an opportunity to announce themselves. Two matches into the 135th IndianOil Durand Cup, Langsning FC have firmly established themselves in the latter category.   Making their first appearance in Asia’s oldest… Continue reading Painting the Durand Cup pink: Langsning FC’s dream start to a new chapter

Somewhere over the Bay of Bengal, thirty-odd footballers and support staff from Colombo and Homagama would have felt the pilot announce the descent into Ranchi, a city none of them had set foot in before, for a tournament most had grown up hearing about only in passing. By the time they walked out at the… Continue reading From Homagama to history: Defenders FC’s first march through the Durand Cup

Nine minutes from time at Salt Lake Stadium, a nineteen-year-old with a Philadelphia birth certificate and a Kolkata heart bent a free-kick past Mohammedan Sporting and into the middle of a conversation Indian football has only just begun having. Veer Arjun Joshi talks family, free-kicks, and the parts of his identity that were never really… Continue reading Bend It Like Veer: Made in Sacramento, scored in Salt Lake