In India-B’desh draw, Hyd remembers its own legend–Rahim Saab

By Abhijit Sen Gupta Hyderabad: Recently India played a football match against Bangladesh and managed to draw 1-1. It was a qualifying round match for the World Cup which is to be held in 2022.
Both teams have very poor ranking in world football (India is ranked 156 and Bangladesh is 207). Going by expected strengths and form of the two teams India should have beaten Bangladesh.   India’s team is being coached by a man called Igor Stimach who used to play for Croatia in the 1990s before he became a coach. Under his guidance in an earlier match, India had held Asian champion Qatar to a 1-1 draw. That result was considered very encouraging for India.
But we seem to have forgotten that there was a period when India was the Asian champion. We could beat all other teams in Asia and some from outside Asia too. That was India playing under the best coach in the history of Indian football–Syed Abdul Rahim of Hyderabad.  Rahim Saab, as everyone called him, was the coach and manager of the Indian team from 1950 till 1963. He was the architect of Indian football. It is important that we do not forget the contributions made by this brilliant and hard-working coach.