After an impressive under-23 debut, Constantine included Davinder Singh (above) in the squad for the tri-nation series against Mauritius and St Kitts, which begins in Mumbai on Saturday.
Davinder Singh does not remember the breakfast menu. Rather, he couldn’t identify half of the items. For the last 10 years, the first meal on a match day was either a parantha or oil-soaked aloo-puri. But the elaborate spread on offer at a Singapore hotel wasn’t even his biggest shock. “The team meetings,” the 22-year-old says. “There used to be a small black board inside our changing room and the coach explained the strategies on it. Suddenly, I was watching videos and the coach was analysing me just like they do it on television.”
The right-back doesn’t even get into the game play bit of it. The culture shock has been massive, and understandably so. A couple of months ago, Davinder was slugging it out on hard, uneven surfaces in the remotest corners of the country, playing inter-varsity tournaments for Punjabi University. Now, he is on the cusp of making his senior India debut.
After an impressive under-23 debut last month, chief coach Stephen Constantine included Davinder in the squad for the tri-nation series against Mauritius and St Kitts, which begins in Mumbai on Saturday. It’s the first time a player has been fast-tracked from a university team straight into the national squad, bypassing all the levels in between. And, as per the records available, it is also just the third time a player from the university ranks has made it to the national team – midfielder Eugeneson Lyngdoh and former striker Abhishek Yadav being the other two.
Yadav, incidentally, is now the chief scout. “I come from the university system. There are some really good players who play at that level but are lost since there wasn’t a system in place,” Yadav says. So Constantine and Yadav decided to cast their net wide. Scouts were packed off to Midnapore, roughly three hours from Kolkata, and Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu. Their brief was simple – strong players, especially in defence, who tackle hard and have strong aerial abilities. A list of 40 players was drawn, who were then invited for under-23 trials in Mumbai last month.
Forty became eight and eight were finally reduced to three. Suddenly, Davinder was in the India squad. “Davinder fit the bill. It wasn’t like we were looking for players in specific positions. He just was the kind of player who had the necessary attributes,” Yadav says. Davinder’s first taste of international football came in an Under-23 match against Singapore last month, and he was a fish out of water. His debut lasted 20 minutes and he came on as a second-half substitute in the second game. “The pace was too much to adjust, fitness wasn’t a problem. I drifted out of my position often, and couldn’t track back,” he says.
In those 65 minutes, though, Davinder showed he was just the kind of player Constantine likes in his defence – a strong and fearless tackler. After benching him in India’s defeat to Syria in the U-23 Asian Cup qualifiers, Davinder was handed his first start against Qatar. The impact was immediate. It turned out to be one of India’s finest defensive performances in recent times, despite losing 0-1 eventually. That was followed by another credible show against Turkmenistan, a match India won 3-1.
Come Saturday, Davinder might just become the 31st player to make his international debut in Constantine’s second stint as coach. He’s still pinching himself. “This isn’t a normal route, I know. Players spend years at various clubs before they are even considered,” he says. “I just hope to prove I belong here.”
