History of the India national football team

[2] Football teams consisting of entirely Indian players started to tour Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand during the late 1930s.

[7][8][9] The Indian side was managed by Pankaj Gupta and led by Karuna Bhattacharya and the team was considered as an attacking side, consisted of A Rahim, Pram Lal, Jumma Khan, C Robello, B Sen, R.Lumsden, Noor Mohammed, A Nandi, K Prosad, who was dubbed as "Mickey the mouse" by the Australian media for his skills and electric speed at the right wing and the goal was kept by K.Dutt.

At the Sydney match on 24 September, Indian striker Lumsden scored the first hat-trick for India against the Australian side which includes a penalty kick.

[10] The 1948 London Olympics was India's first major international tournament, where a predominately barefooted Indian team lost 2–1 to France, failing to convert two penalties.

Indian footballers’ bravery and brilliance in bare feet at the 1948 Olympics earned them no less a fan than Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II.

[13][17][12] In the Netherlands India lost 1–2 against Sparta Rotterdam but stunned Ajax Amsterdam led by legendary Rinus Michels by 5–1, two days later.

Back in England and Wales, it put together a string of victories over several teams including Boldmere St. Michaels F.C., which it met on a muddy pitch at Church Road Ground on 31 August 1948, a day with heavy rainfall.

[17] In 1950, India managed to qualify for the 1950 FIFA World Cup finals, which was scheduled to take place in Brazil; where it was drawn with Sweden, Italy, and Paraguay.

The All India Football Federation gave various reasons for the team's withdrawal, including travel costs, lack of practice time, and valuing the Olympics above the World Cup.

[18] Despite the reason given out from the AIFF, many football historians and pundits have repeated the tale that India withdrew from the World Cup due to FIFA imposing a rule banning players from playing barefoot.

The team finished in fourth place during the Summer Olympics football tournament, losing the bronze-medal match to Bulgaria 3–0.

Despite their performance two years prior during the AFC Asian Cup, India could not go beyond the group stage as the team finished third, behind Japan and Iran.

[35] In 1974, India's performance in the Asian Games once again sharply declined as they finished the 1974 edition in last place in their group, losing all three matches, scoring two, and conceding 14 goals in the first round.

[44] Constantine was replaced by Syed Nayeemuddin in 2005 but the Indian head coach only lasted for a little over a year as India suffered many heavy defeats during the 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers.

[50] In order to prepare for the Asian Cup, Houghton had the team stay together as a squad for eight months from June 2010 until the start of the tournament, meaning the players would not play for their clubs.

[58] India played its first match in 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualification on 21 March winning 3–0 against Chinese Taipei, with Jewel Raja Shaikh, Sunil Chhetri and Jeje Lalpekhlua scoring the goals.

[80] But in the second match they earned a respectable point after managing a goalless draw against the 2019 Asian Champion and 2022 FIFA World Cup host Qatar.

In the return leg against Qatar, India went down to the hosts with a single goal and got knocked out of the World Cup qualification tournament with two games to spare.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, India was chosen as the host of the group of the qualifiers while the qualification was reduced into a single round robin format.

[87] In September 2022, India participated for the first time in the VFF Cup where they played two friendly matches, a 1–1 draw against Singapore and a 3–0 defeat by Vietnam.

[91][92][93] Following the Tri-Nation Series and the Intercontinental Cup, India won the 2023 SAFF championship, their third title in the year 2023 at home soil.

[100] Blue as the national colour for India was soon made more prominent due to the success of the cricket and field hockey teams.

That stripe expands when a player is in motion to maximize ventilation, complementing Nike's proprietary Dri-FIT technology that helps draw sweat away from the body.

He was the first footballer to be awarded Padma Shree in the year 1962[114] and in 1998 Government of India introduced postal stamp to honour the legend.

[2][4][5] In the later 1930s, India came out to be one of the strongest attacking teams from Asia, evidenced during their winter tour of Australia in 1938, where the attacking Indian side including Lumsden, Noor Mohammed, Rahim, K.Prosad, A Nandi under the leadership of K.Bhattacharya stormed the New South Wales coast with a total of 58 goals in 17 matches, which includes five international friendlies against Australia, where Lumsden scored three hat-tricks, one being against the Australian side, thus scoring the first international hat-trick for India.

At a very young age, dribbling improvised balls made out of rags, cane-strips or pomelos as a real football was hard to come by, gradually improved his skills as defensive midfielder which was frustrating for opponent team strikers.

He was asked to join the national colour and was unanimously given the responsibility of leading the team at 1948 Olympics, India's first major tournament since independence[116][115] and also was the flag bearer of Indian contingents at London.

[122] In the 1950s and 60s, excellent strikers like Sheoo Mewalal, Neville D'Souza, Chuni Goswami, Inder Singh and Tulsidas Balaram played for the national team.

[130] He was one of greatest players in Indian football history and was bestowed with Padma Shri by Government of India and AFC honoured him as Best Striker of Asia in 1962.

Banerjee along with Thangaraj also represented India at the 1958, 1962 and 1966 Asian games and at the 1962 edition they won the gold where in the final he scored one of the two winning goals.