It’s a Thursday afternoon and I’m at my home in Bengaluru, getting a deep clean done and tending to my two cats, Flower and Chubby. It’s nice to have this time, but also strange.
In normal circumstances, this would have been a period when things would be heating up in the Indian Super League; we would have been 10 games or so in and so many narratives, talking points would have emerged. Instead, we are just training, checking social media for updates and waiting for the Indian Super League (ISL) — rather, Indian domestic football — to restart again.
I don’t think something like this has ever happened in Indian football before. Even during Covid, when the world had shut down and fear was everywhere, we still managed to make the league happen. In many ways, that time was tougher than now. There were bubbles, uncertainty, anxiety about health — but there was still football.
When the ISL finished in April, my mind immediately shifted to the pre-season. After the Super Cup ended, the thoughts turned to the league, which seemed like just around the corner. You prepare your body, your mind. For me, that meant going to Norway for two or three months, training there, coming back sharper, joining the national team. That structure gave meaning to everything. I liked that life.
Now it’s December. And it feels like nothing.
There’s no sense of excitement, no countdown. We’re just… sitting. Waiting. I honestly feel like a sitting duck. I’m not living with any long-term vision right now. It’s one week at a time. One day at a time.
I’m fortunate to be at a club like Bengaluru FC where most of our concerns are taken care of. But at this point, I don’t even think of myself as “an ISL player.” I think of myself simply as a professional footballer with a contract. Whatever the club asks, we do. Right now, that means training. Making sure operations don’t collapse. That the kitman is there. The physio is there. The ball boys are there. The whole ecosystem keeps breathing. Because once that stops, everything dies.
The thought of having no football, no games scares me. Truly. I don’t have an MBA on the side. I don’t have a doctorate to fall back on. Football is what I chose when I was young. I grew up with dreams like: I want to play professionally, I want to play 200 games. I’ve done that. Over 200 games for BFC in eight years.
Abroad, if you tell someone a player has been professional for nine years but one full year of his career had no league, no matches, they’d be shocked. That’s not normal. That’s not how a footballer’s life is supposed to work.
And so, we wait. Whenever I speak to Sandesh (Jhingan), Amrinder (Singh) or Sunil (Chhetri) bhai, it’s the same conversation every time. “Any update?” “Anything new?” Someone saw something on social media, someone heard about a meeting. We get hopeful for a moment. Then the news comes — no resolution yet. And then you shut it out and go back to what feels safe. The pitch.
I’m grateful, honestly, that at least we can train. Because I don’t even want to imagine what happens if that stops. This is an extremely fragile time for footballers. So many players aren’t training at all. So many are out of contract. Some were injured and thought pre-season would be time for rehab, some thought they’d join a club, use it as a stepping stone — and suddenly everything disappears. It’s brutal.
I saw Messi come to India and of course, it’s great. Great for the sport, great for the hype, great for his bank account too. But somewhere, I felt it could have been more meaningful. Imagine Messi, Suárez, De Paul watching an ISL game. Bengaluru FC vs Mumbai City at the Kanteerava Stadium. East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan in Kolkata. Imagine him interacting with Indian players, sharing feedback, talking about what he went through, what we need to do as a footballing country.
But these events are planned months in advance. I get that, and when the organisers planned this tour, no one would have predicted this level of crisis in Indian football.
I understand that some of the best minds in Indian football are trying to work out a solution. What I feel, though, is that all the other issues related to administration can be done on the side. The league should not be a collateral damage.
The ISL, the Indian Women’s League, the I-League all matter. Development matters. But so do the players who show up every day to train despite the uncertainty. For players like us, who gave everything to this game, the scariest thing isn’t losing form. It’s losing football itself.
– The writer has captained the Indian football team, and plays for Bengaluru FC. He spoke to Mihir Vasavda.
