⚽️ HT Kick Off: Diaspora delightsIn the success of Cape Verde Islands is a message India continues to not acknowledge, says Dhiman in this issue
Sandesh Jhingan said it didn’t matter that he had never played Singapore. The only time India played the city-state after his international debut, Jhingan had reached on match day due to a problem with his travel documents.
“Not playing by same rules”In June, soon after he had stepped down as India head coach, Manolo Marquez had spoken about this. India played Syria who had 14 naturalised players including Pablo Sabagg who was born in Barranquilla, Colombia. Apparently, Sabagg’s grandfather had a Syrian connection, Marquez told me. And then you play Hong Kong who have players born in Brazil, Cameroon, England, Germany and Spain, he said. “It felt like you were not playing by the same rules.” “I don’t know when exactly but India will have to change because if not, step by step, we will be going down,” said Marquez echoing what Igor Stimac and Stephen Constantine had said before him. The FC Goa head coach said naturalising players should not be at the expense of long-term development, of the kind that has taken Uzbekistan to the 2026 World Cup finals. Investment in infrastructure, age-specific teams and working towards a longer season should continue, he said. I know it is easier said than done and prior attempts have gone nowhere (Sunny Dhaliwal, Michael Chopra). I have read reports of Syria’s experience with German-born Mahmoud Dahoud not going to plan. And I get it that India does not allow dual citizenship. But neither does Singapore and Japan and players not born Singaporean or Japanese have played for both national teams. The Cape Verde wayCape Verde Island being one win away from a berth in the 2026 World Cup makes me think AIFF should focus more on this. This west African country with a population of 6 lakh has used talent from its diaspora. “The football association devised new strategies around identifying and recruiting talent throughout the large Cape Verdean communities,” said U.S.-based agent Tony Araujo, who was born on the islands and worked closely with the team over decades, according to a Reuters report. “The talent identification and global recruitment process started to pay off huge dividends around 2013, when they qualified for their first (Africa) Cup of Nations final.” With players born in Portugal, France and Ireland, Cape Verde can win against Eswatini at home next week and make it to the 48-team finals. That’s some shift from their first World Cup qualifying campaign in 1990 when they were 182nd in the FIFA rankings. On Wednesday, down 1-3 away to Libya they forced a 3-3 draw. It took Cape Verde to 20 points, two more than Cameroon and on top of the group. Read Ireland-born defender Roberto Lopes’s interview here. From head coach Patrick Kluivert to players in the squad, there is a strong Dutch connection in the Indonesia national team. They lost 2-3 to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday but the dream to qualify for their first World Cup as an independent country is still alive.
Born in Loughborough, Hamza Choudhury has lifted Bangladesh, South Korea have German-born Jens Castrop, Qatar forward Almoez Ali was born in Khartoum, midfielders Song Ui-young and Kyoga Nakamura were South Korean and Japanese respectively before becoming part of the Singapore national team and if Malaysia’s campaign in the Asian Cup qualifiers in unravelling it is because of the consequences of a FIFA ban on seven naturalised players. Last May, following sustained efforts from AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey, the union sports ministry said it could consider allowing Persons of Indian Origin in football and tennis. The player will need an Indian passport and that means AIFF still has a lot of ground to cover. But, facing a governance crisis, it could be a long while before that happens. Play of the week
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In other newsFixing in A-League: A former club captain and once A-League’s player of the year has admitted his role in a lucrative match-fixing scheme and pleaded guilty to the charges in an Australian court on Thursday, reports AP. Ulises Davila, 34, was accused of being the ringleader of the betting scheme which involved him and two Macarthur Bulls teammates deliberately earning yellow cards. During a match on December 9, 2023 against Sydney FC, Davila and his teammates Clayton Lewis and Kearyn Baccus were handed yellow cards. Bets had been placed on the Macathur team receiving at least four cards during the game, according to facts agreed to by Davila’s teammates. Winning payouts for the bets placed through a gambling site totalled more than 200,000 Australian dollars ($132,000). Davila paid Lewis and Baccus AUD 10,000 ($6,600) each. Ratcliffe backs Amorim: Manchester United’s under-pressure coach Ruben Amorim will be given the full three years of his contract to prove himself and the club will become the most profitable in the world, co-owner Jim Ratcliffe said on Wednesday, reports Reuters. “I remember the clamouring for Alex Ferguson to be fired in his first two years,” Ratcliffe, who owns 30% of the club and controls the football side of the business, told “The Business”, a podcast of “The Times.” “You look at (Mikel) Arteta at Arsenal. He had a miserable time for the first couple of years ... .We have to be patient…Ruben needs to demonstrate that he’s a great coach over three years.”
Boca coach dead: Boca Juniors coach Miguel Ángel Russo, whose extensive career spanned more than a dozen clubs in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Spain, and Colombia, has died after a long battle with prostate cancer, his Argentine club said, reports AP. He was 69. Russo, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, accepted a contract to manage Boca Juniors for a third stint in June. He had previously coached the team in 2007 and from 2020 to 2021. His last match at the helm of Boca Juniors was on September 21 against Central Córdoba at La Bombonera Stadium. Jordi Alba to retire: Jordi Alba, 36, has announced that he will retire from football at the conclusion of Inter Miami’s run in the Major League Soccer playoffs, says AP. Alba will be the second of Lionel Messi’s longtime teammates after Sergio Busquets to say this year will be his last. “I’ve decided to bring my professional football career to an end at the conclusion of this season. I do so with complete conviction, with peace and with happiness because I feel I’ve walked this path with every ounce of passion I had, and now it’s just the right moment to open a new chapter and close the previous one with the best possible feeling,” the defender said on social media. Savinho at City till 2031: Brazil winger Savinho signed a new contract with Manchester City that will keep him at the Premier League club until 2031, with an option to extend the deal by a further 12 months, says AFP. The 21-year-old was a target for Tottenham during the transfer window but Spurs were reportedly put off by City’s £70 million ($94 million) valuation. Despite struggling to hold down a regular starting spot in Pep Guardiola’s side, Savinho provided 13 assists and scored three goals during 48 appearances last season -- his first in English football.
Veteran Delhi football administrator dead: Delhi’s veteran football administrator NK Bhatia died on Saturday after a prolonged illness, reports PTI. He was 76. Bhatia had been suffering from age-related complications and was admitted to the intensive care unit of a city hospital. Bhatia was the vice-president of Football Delhi and had been the secretary of the erstwhile Delhi Soccer Association (DSA). Bhatia was a “pillar of support,” former Football Delhi president Shaji Prabhakaran said on X. Father, son sacked on same day: A father and son coaching two of Greece’s top-flight clubs were sacked within hours of each other after their teams conceded a combined 11 goals in heavy defeats, reports AFP. Sunday was a dark day for the Petrakis family as son Giorgos, 37, was the first to go after his team, former Greek champions Larissa, suffered a shock 5-2 home defeat to local rivals Volos one day earlier. His father Giannis, 66, was then let go by Panetolikos hours later after an even worse showing, losing 6-0 away to Levadiakos. It was the most humiliating top-flight defeat in the 99-year history of the club from Agrinio. De Jong, Rabiot irked: Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong and Adrien Rabiot of AC Milan criticised plans of La Liga and Serie A to play matches in Miami and Perth, reports AP and Reuters. Barcelona will play Villarreal in Miami later this year and Perth will host the match between AC Milan and Como because San Siro will be unavailable in February due to the Winter Olympics. “I can understand the clubs; they’ll profit from it,” De Jong said. “But I wouldn’t have decided it myself. We will now be playing an away match on a neutral venue. But I don’t feel like anyone is listening to us.” Rabiot told “Le Figaro” that “It’s crazy to travel so many miles for a match between two Italian teams in Australia.” To which Serie A chief executive Luigi De Siervo said: “Rabiot forgets, like all footballers who earn millions of euros, that they are paid to carry out an activity, to play football.” You may also be interested in:
Iconic momentSalah ends Egypt’s wait
Mohamed Salah scored twice to help Egypt beat Djibouti 3-0 in Casablanca on Wednesday and qualify for the 2026 World Cup. The 33-year-old has now netted nine times in a marathon qualifying campaign that began two years ago, and victory for Egypt gave them an unassailable five-point lead over Burkina Faso in Group A. After Ibrahim Adel put Egypt ahead on eight minutes against opponents 158 places lower in the world rankings, Salah netted six minutes later and again on 84 minutes. While Egypt have won the Africa Cup of Nations a record seven times, they have been less successful in the World Cup, qualifying just four times in 15 attempts -- in 1934, 1990, 2018 and now 2026. Also readA touch of cricket’s DRS in “light VAR” Trump-Infantino friendship and a MAGA World Cup They said it
That’s all for this week. As always, I look forward to your feedback. You can either write to me at dhiman@htlive.com, or reply to this mail.
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