By: Daniel Mandl
They have participated in many Olympic games and continue to be a steady presence in the Asian Cup.
They have not been as successful in the global showcase that is the FIFA World Cup, but they continue to make an effort thanks to the great love for the sport in the country.
This love has produced many great players and Overlyzer, with its best software for football bettors, brings you the top five in this article.
Sunil Chhetri
38-year-old Sunil Chhetri has been considered the best footballer from India for a long time.
The Bengaluru FC star striker and captain, who also captains the Indian national team, has been playing professional football since 2002. In that time, he has grown into an icon of Indian and Asian sports.
He is third behind Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo on the list of active international footballers. This was recognised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 2018 with their conference of the title of "Asian Icon" on Chhetri.
Indian footballers rarely make it out of the country but Chhetri was good enough to get signed by Queens' Park Rangers in 2009. The British government did not issue him a work permit because India was ranked below 70 in the FIFA rankings.
English football did not work, but Major League Soccer of the United States of America and Canada took a chance on him. He became the first Indian to play in the MLS when the Kansas City Wizards signed him in 2010.
Chhetri is now the all-time appearance maker for India and the face of the national team. He will be for years to come.
P. K. Banerjee
Pradip Kumar Banerjee is one of the greatest players to have ever represented the Indian national team.
He passed away in 2020 at the age of 83 after a beautiful life, part of which was spent making Indians happy as a brilliant football player.
Like Chhetri, he captained the national team, for whom he played 45 matches and scored 15 goals. He led the Indian team to the 1956 and 1960 Olympics and it was at these competitions that he wrote his name in gold.
PK was instrumental in India's run up to the semifinals of the 1956 Olympics football tournament, which to date remains India's biggest international achievement. He is also the man responsible for India's biggest football result in their history, a 1 - 1 draw with France in the 1960 Olympics. Two years after that, he would captain the team to victory in the 1962 Asian Cup.
He became a manager after his retirement and the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) crowned him the best Indian footballer of the 20th Century.
P. K. Banerjee is also the only Indian footballer to receive the FIFA Order of Merit Award, FIFA's highest honour to exemplary players, managers, personalities and organizations involved in football and football administrators
Subimal "Chuni" Goswami
Before there was Sunil Chhetri, there was Subimal "Chuni" Goswami.
This is not a direct comparison of their abilities, although both players have been compared many times by Indian football analysts, journalists and aficionados. This is about their ties to English football.
In 1962, Chuni Goswami was approached by Tottenham Hotspur following his exploits in the 1962 Asian Games. Alongside P. K. Banerjee, the former striker was one of India's best players in the 1950s and 1960s.
While Banerjee was the goal machine with strength, pace, power and trickery, Chuni Goswami was the striker-playmaker who scored only when he was not creating goals from the front.
Tottenham saw this in the 1962 Asian games and invited him for tryouts with a view to offering him a contract. Goswami would turn them down because of his love for his country and his hometown club Mohun Bagan.
That move made him an even bigger figure in Indian football, one which he embellished with his ability on the pitch. He would also go on to have a brilliant career as a cricketer, India's most popular sport.
Chhetri is the 21st century poster boy for Indian football, but it was Goswami who was the first poster boy of Indian football.
Tulsidas Balaram
Tulsidas Balaram completed the trinity of Indian football in the 1950s and 1960s along with PK Banerjee and Chuni Goswami.
He was a forward with the ability to start plays from deep like Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry and Harry Kane in modern football. His link up with Goswami and Banerjee was a thing of beauty and it led India to many impressive results, considering the quality of the team at the time.
Those qualities of his have made many Indian football experts predict that he would thrive in the modern era of football, where forwards are more involved in attacking buildups.
His career was a short one due to illness. He retired at the age of 27 after falling ill with tuberculosis. He went on to live a long life and even entered into football management for a while.
Subrata Pal
When Indian football experts talk about the best goalkeepers they have ever had, only one name stands close to Peter Thangaraj.
That name is Subrata Pal.
Pal, 36, currently plays for Mohun Bagan, on loan from Hyderabad. He represented India for 10 years between 2007 and 2017.
Before his debut for the Blue Tigers, he was an unknown goalkeeper in the Indian youth system. He would take up the mantle of India's number 1 in 2007 for the Nehru Cup where he would be awarded the best goalkeeper of the tournament.
As his rock rose in India, the time came for the Blue Tigers' under-23 team to make a charge for the 2010 Olympics. India was saved by his goalkeeping in the qualifiers which allowed them to qualify narrowly for the tournament.
They would not go too far but since then, Pal and Thangaraj have been mentioned in the same bracket. Paul's longevity has helped him stay longer in the hearts of Indian football faithful, who now consider him one of the country's greatest players. [GP/JS]
