Welcome Khalid Jamil, the new Head Coach of the national football team. It is doubtful if any head coach of any sporting discipline in India could have come to the national scene at this juncture when uncertainty is what prevails all around! Indian football currently presents just this and nothing more. There is little to talk of Indian football at the present stage. Such is the desolation that any step even seemingly positive is a big moment as far as the sport goes. Where foreign coaches have one after another gone away in disgust or disappointment whichever way one looked at it, it now up to an native Indian to try and bring some sense to the settings. That is why Jamil’s coming in is a big step — but pity the man, for the task at hand is not easy, to put it mildly. After more than a decade, Savio Medeira was the last Indian coach to handle the national team back in 2011, another Indian has risen in the confidence of the powers that be and for good reason.

Indeed, it is so unfortunate that football should be in such a state of affairs. Where most other sporting disciplines, aside from cricket (ever the bright one), in the country have some good moments to show, football has just been yearning to regain at least some semblance of its past shine and glory but........

© Mathrubhumi English