History of Indian football - glorious highs, persistent lows and one big missed opportunity

The history of Indian football, in a nutshell, is a roller-coaster ride with some memorable highs, persistent lows and a missed opportunity to play at a FIFA World Cup.

Here’s a chronological rundown of the major events and timelines that shaped Indian football over the years.

Origin of Indian football: 1800-1900

Football made its landfall in India along with British colonisers early in the mid-19th century. However, in the early days, the sport was strictly restricted to the British army and naval officers stationed in India.

The 1870s saw the lines blur. While Calcutta FC, India’s first football club, is said to have been established in 1872, various accounts suggest that it originally started as a rugby club before switching to football in 1894.

However, it was not until Nagendra Prasad Sarbadhikari’s arrival that Indian football found its true pioneer.

The legendary football administrator was responsible for setting up several football clubs across Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta) and Bengal, which gave the game’s popularity a huge lift. Calcutta and Bengal, hence, became the epicentre of football in India.

The three Kolkata giants, Mohun Bagan, set up in 1889, Mohammedan Sporting Club, created in 1891 and East Bengal, established in 1920, were all indirect products of the movement initiated by Sarbadhikari. All three clubs still exist.

Sovabazar Club, one of the many clubs set up by Sarbadhikari himself, won the 1892 Trades Cup after beating the East Surrey Regiment. Sovabazar were the first all-Indian club to beat a British team to win a trophy and set the stage for Mohun Bagan’s historic IFA Shield win almost two decades later.

In 1893, Sarbadhikari, also dubbed the father of Indian football, also played a pivotal role in establishing the Indian Football Association (IFA) – which served as the de facto governing body of football in the country before the All India Football Federation (AIFF) was coined in 1937.

Sarbadhikari’s football revolution, which started from the Eastern shores, soon branched out to other parts of India and in 1899, the RB Ferguson Football Club or Young Men's Football Club, was set up in Thrissur, Kerala. It was the first football club in South India and played a major role in making the game popular in Kerala, which along with Bengal and Hyderabad would become the hotbeds of Indian football.

The Durand Cup, which is the oldest active football tournament in Asia today, was started in 1888. The Santosh Trophy, India’s footballing championship for the states, has been running since 1941.

The pre-Independence football era: 1900-1947

With India’s freedom struggle in full swing between 1900 to 1947, football, interestingly, became a relevant tool of resistance.

Mahatma Gandhi, often considered the architect of Indian independence, interestingly, set up three football clubs in South Africa’s Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg in the early 1900s and named them Passive Resisters Soccer Club.

Gandhi used the matches as a platform to spread awareness about the evils of racial segregation and educated the masses about the principles of nonviolent resistance. After coming back to India in 1914 to actively spearhead India’s freedom movement, Gandhi continued his association with the sport and facilitated the tour of the first football team from South Africa to India in 1921-22.

Meanwhile, Mohun Bagan’s IFA Shield victory in 1911, beating the East Yorkshire Regiment in the final was a watershed moment. Not only did the Kolkata side become the first all-Indian club to win the prestigious trophy but the victory also proved to be a big spark in India’s freedom struggle.

In 1940, Mohammedan Sporting would go on to replicate the same emotions by beating Warwickshire Regiment 2-1 in the final to become the first non-Indian team to lift the iconic Durand Cup trophy.

An Indian team, comprising both Indian and British players, visited Sri Lanka (Ceylon at the time) for what was the Indian football team’s first-ever official foreign tour. Legendary footballer Gostha Pal, regarded as the first captain of the Indian football team, led the squad during the trip.

A few years earlier, the AIFF was formed to take over the governance of Indian football in 1937. The following year, an Indian national football team visited Australia for five friendly matches and a host of exhibition games against local clubs for its first trip outside Asia.

It was during the same tour, in the fourth friendly vs Australia on September 24, 1938, that India’s R Lumsden scored three goals in a 5-4 loss at Sydney. It was the first international hat-trick recorded by an Indian football player.

Golden era, missed World Cup: 1948 to 1970

Following India’s independence in 1947, the Indian football team’s first official assignment, interestingly, was a trip to London for the 1948 Summer Olympics.

Representing the Indian tricolour for the first time in the international arena, the Indian football team, led by the charismatic Talimeren Ao and coached by Balaidas Chatterjee, took the field against European giants France at East London’s Cricklefield Stadium in front of a 17,000-strong crowd on July 31, 1948.

An unfancied India did end up losing their debut football match at the Olympics 2-1 with Sarangapani Raman scoring independent India’s first-ever international goal in the match.

However, the team, which also included Sailen Manna, made the headlines for making Les Bleus sweat until the final minute. Eight of India’s players played barefoot in the match.

India would go on to play in the next three Olympics - Helsinki 1952, Melbourne 1956 and Rome 1960 - on-the-trot. At Melbourne 1956, the Indian football team, coached by the legendary Syed Abdul Rahim, made history by becoming the first Asian team to make the semi-finals in Olympic football after defeating hosts Australia in the quarter-finals.

Defeats to Yugoslavia in the semis and Bulgaria in the bronze medal match, however, saw the Samar Banerjee-led team narrowly miss out on a medal.

In fact, the period between 1948 to 1970 is often considered as the Golden Era of Indian football.

The period saw the Indian football team win two Asian Games gold medals (1951 and 1962) and one bronze (1970). India also made their AFC Asian Cup debut in 1964 and finished runners-up -- their best finish in the competition to date.

Coach Rahim along with a bunch of talented players like PK Banerjee, Chuni Goswami and Tulsidas Balaram were chief contributors behind the success.

India also qualified for the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil after several withdrawals but AIFF refused to send a team citing ‘disagreements over team selection and insufficient practice time. India are yet to qualify for the football World Cup since.

On the domestic front, East Bengal created history by becoming the first Indian club to win the IFA Shield three times in-a-row - from 1949 to 1951 - which prompted the English FA annual almanack of 1951-52 to adjudge the Red and Golds as the best Indian football club.

Backtrack and stagnation: 1970 to 2005

Indian football, however, failed to build on the earlier success as the next few decades saw India, once considered an Asian giant, gradually slip down the pecking order.

There were a few scattered successes though.

India, under the captaincy of Prasun Banerjee, were the joint-winners of the 1974 Asian Youth Championship in Bangkok with Iran. The senior team also won multiple gold medals at the SAF Games and dominated the SAFF Championship.

However, the team struggled to make a mark on the continental or world stage. Between 1968 and 2008, the Indian football team managed to qualify for just a single AFC Asian Cup - the 1984 edition held in Singapore - but failed to progress beyond the group stage.

Even at the Asian Games, which the team once dominated, India have never progressed beyond the last eight since their bronze win in 1970.

The Nehru Cup, which started in 1982 in order to get quality national teams from all over the world to play in India, also gradually lost its sheen and was scrapped after the 2012 edition.

Club football also painted a similar story. Barring East Bengal winning the ASEAN Championship in 2003, successes at the continental stage were few and far between.

Despite possessing some talented players like Bhaichung Bhutia, IM Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri, during the period, India failed to cope with the infrastructural and technical needs of the modern game.

The AIFF also made several changes to the domestic structure during the time frame. The Federation Cup was started in 1977 and was designed to be the premier cup competition for clubs in the country. The same year also saw Pele visit Kolkata with Cosmos to play Mohun Bagan in an exhibition match.

The National Football League also kicked off in 1996 and was the first organised league football competition in India. JCT were the inaugural champions. It was replaced by the I-League in 2007.

Revival phase: 2008-present

The past decade-and-a-half has seen Indian football go through a mini-revival of sorts.

Indian football took a major step forward in the right direction after the national team, spearheaded by a young Sunil Chhetri, won the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup.

The victory qualified India for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, marking India’s return to the continental competition after a 27-year-long hiatus. The same year also saw Goa club Dempo finishing as the semi-finalists at the 2008 AFC Cup.

East Bengal were also the AFC Cup semi-finalists in 2013 before Bengaluru FC finished runner-ups in 2016 for what is the best finish by any Indian team at the continental tournament to date.

The Indian Arrows project, designed to expose promising young talents to top-tier domestic club football, was started in 2010. Despite several challenges, the project proved to be the pipeline for Indian football for the next decade, producing first-team regulars like Pritam Kotal, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Jeje Lalpekhlua and Anwar Ali.

The cash-rich Indian Super League (ISL) was started in 2014 and was incorporated into the Indian football calendar gradually and replaced the I-League as the country’s top-tier league competition in 2022-23.

Meanwhile, the Super Cup, started in 2018, replaced the Federation Cup as India’s top knockout competition.

ISL team FC Goa became the first Indian team to play in the main draw of the AFC Champions League - the continent’s top-tier club football competition. The following year, Mumbai City FC became the first Indian club to win a match in the tournament.

The national team, meanwhile, failed to qualify for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup but made the cut for the next two editions held in 2019 and 2023. Chhetri, who is the fourth in the list of international goal scorers in the world after Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Ali Daei was a central figure behind these exploits before his retirement from national team duty in 2024.

India have also won two of the three Intercontinental Cups held since the tournament started, beating Kenya in the inaugural final in 2018 and then dispatching Lebanon in 2023.