The FIFA World Cup Squad India Never Built — Hiding in Plain Sight on Four Other Teams

After the injury, he waited a few years, accepted what had happened, and in 1996 packed everything into bags and flew to Doha. He found work. He started a family. On Friday afternoons he played in local amateur leagues on dusty pitches with other Malayali men, all of them far from Kerala, all of them still needing football the way you need something you gave up too early. His son Tahsin used to sit by the dugout and watch. The boy was four years old. He would wait until the matches finished and then walk up to his father’s teammates…