This week, we look at some news from India, specifically involving veteran women's national team coach Thomas Dennerby (ex-national team coach of Sweden and Nigeria) taking over the U-17 national team coaching job of India late last year. India is the host for the 2020 Women's World Cup, originally set for this coming November, but was postponed indefinitely by FIFA in early April. India was also recently named as host of the 2022 Asian Women's Cup, which doubles as the World Cup qualifiers for the 2023 games, which have yet to be awarded. We examine other news about India's women's football, including a review of players who have played with clubs in the United Kingdom and look at the state of the national league in India. We also profile two top international players in the Indian Women's League (albeit brief that its season is), one from Bangladesh and one from Nepal, and close by looking at the women's league in Bangladesh.
Dennerby takes over as India's U-17 national team coach
Thomas Dennerby, who led Nigeria's women's national team to a Round of 16 berth last summer at the Women's World Cup in France as the squad received a number of positive reviews for strong play (particularly in defense), in November of 2019 accepted the job as the coach of India's U-17 women's national team ahead of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. Dennerby took over Nigeria's national team in January of 2018 and led the side to a third consecutive African Women's Cup of Nations Title in Ghana (their 11th in 13 tournaments) and the WAFU Zone B regional title in May last year (defeating the host Ivory Coast 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 tie in the Final). Dennerby coached Sweden's women's national team for seven years (2005-2012) and helped his home nation finish with the bronze medal at the 2011 Women's World Cup in Germany and a quarterfinal berth in the 2012 Olympics. Dennerby (60) has a UEFA Pro License.
All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel said, "Thomas is the right candidate to coach the women's U-17 team in the 2020 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. I am confident that with his vast experience he will be able to implement the technicalities of modern day football among the future generation of Indian women's football team. I wish him good luck." Dennerby said, "It is a big challenge to be coaching the host of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup India 2020, [which was originally set to start on November 3, 2020, but was delayed indefinitely by FIFA on April 4, along with the U-20 Women's World Cup this summer in Costa Rica and Panama]. I am extremely humbled and grateful to AIFF for giving me the responsibility to groom the team for the World Cup. There are 12 months still left for the mega event and that with my experience of having coached in World Cups, Olympics, European Championships, I would be able to stitch them into a formidable team. The optimism and cooperation among all in the federation makes me feel we will achieve it together."
Under Dennerby, the U-17's played Sweden and Thailand in a three nation's tournament at home in December after a training camp in Goa. India defeated Thailand 1-0 but lost the first match to Sweden 3-0 and then the Final 4-0, again to the Nordic power. Before the matches, Dennerby said, "If you look at the technical skills of the players, in general, most of them are doing very good. Some of them have really good touch of the ball, they have good short passing skills and even long passing. If we look at the fitness levels—we probably have a little job to do and we have a good fitness coach taking care of that in the form of Per Karlsson," who was with Dennerby in Nigeria and was a track and field athlete. Dennerby also brought Precious Dede with him from Nigeria to coach the goalkeepers. She won 99 caps and played in 3 Women's World Cups for Nigeria.
Dennerby wants to install a passing game with his young squad, "I want us to be more open offensively and very strict defensively. I want us to have a good passing game where the players know which spaces to come into, where you want to attack and when to play the crucial passes. In defense, you have to play as a unit and you have to be compact in order to keep the opposition away from the scoring zones." Despite the losses to his home country in the December tournament, he was pleased with the win over Thailand, "Of course, it was a crucial win. It means a lot for the self-confidence. Winning football games is really, really important. I can't say that enough." He also has gained from the three friendlies a good benchmark of things to work on before the global tournament.
AFC Women's Asian Cup 2022 will be hosted by India
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced that the next edition of their top international women's tournament will be hosted by India for the second time in their history, with their first coming in 1980. It will also mark the first time since 2003 that more than 8 teams will feature in the event, with the AFC increasing the number of participants to 12 teams in the 2022 edition (the last edition in Jordan had 8 sides). The Asian Cup will again double as the regional Women's World Cup qualification tournament for WWC 2023, with Asian sides Japan and Australia (jointly with Oceania's New Zealand) still in the running to host, along with CONMEBOL's Colombia and Brazil. India won the hosting rights to the AFC tourney over Chinese Taipei and Uzbekistan. This is a significant event for the growth of women's football in the nation and a nice follow-up to the 2020 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.
Indian Players in the United Kingdom
We touched recently on Indian international Bala Devi's recent move to Rangers in Scotland (see:https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/the-week-i...).
Devi (30) signed an 18 month professional contact in January and is the all-time scoring leader in the four year old Indian Women's League (see below) with 38 goals across two seasons and one of the top players on the Indian women's national team, with 52 goals in 58 games.
Devi grew up in the football-mad northeastern state of Manipur, where the state's women's team has won 20 of the 25 national championships held since 1991. She recently told the Guardian, "For us in Manipur, luckily, girls are encouraged when they play sports. We did face comments at times, but it only made me want to prove myself." Her football skills led to a job with the Manipur Police, for which she played for their sports club. He hope is of a future at home in which there is "a strong league" to attract more young girls to the game. There is that potential with the U-17 Women's World Cup and Asian Women's Cup coming to the country in the near future, which should substantial raise the profile and credibility of the game in the country and attract more young females to the sport.
A few other Indian players have moved to the United Kingdom in the past and played women's football while in school. Current national team goalkeeper Aditi Chouhan played with West Ham United from 2015-2018. Chauhan (27) is currently with Gokulam Kerala FC and went to college at the University of Delhi and then Loughborough University in England, where she got her Master's Degree in Sports Management. She made her Hammer's debut on 16 August 2015 in a 0–5 defeat by Coventry Ladies to become the first player from the India national women's team to play competitively in England. She returned home to join India Rush in 2018 in the Indian Women's League and then moved to Gokulam Kerala FC for the 2019-20 season.
Chauhan received some media attention when she faced deportation from the U.K. as she couldn't renew her student visa under English Football Association rules in order to play with a first or second division club. When she first came to England to study, she trialed with various clubs in the women's leagues like Millwall Lionesses, a second division club. However, she could not join them due to the same FA rules in which a player on a student visa cannot join a club in the top two tiers of women's football. She was able to sign with West Ham because it was in the semiprofessional third division (they had the same goalkeeper's coach as Millwall). However, that semi-pro status prevented the club from helping her with her work permit difficulties at the end of her college studies. Chauhan was 24-years-old at the time and said, "I was not allowed to play in the first or second division at first, but now I'm not allowed to play in any divisions but those. It's just ridiculous and stupid."
Midfielder Tanvie Hans is another Delhi-raised player and was able to play with Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham FC in England while studying at Exeter University, first playing for their University team. She played at Tottenham Hotspur from 2013-15 (in Division 3 but the team is now in the WSL2 league). and then a season for Fulham in the 4th division (The original Fulham Women's team in 2000 became the first fully professional full-time side in England but reverted back to semiprofessional status three years later. Two consecutive relegations caused the team to fold after the 2009-10 season, while Hans played for the new side that began in 2014.). Hans explained to a local media outlet in 2019 that she, starting at age 8, played in pickup games—even with boys—and then for a variety of clubs, schools and even went to football academies while growing up in India, "It sounds like I played a lot of football but my exposure was very scarce and this was one of the biggest challenges I've had to face and probably is something that girls face even now. I went to Exeter University and I played for the team there. This was my first exposure to English Women's Football and I obviously loved how extremely structured and professional football was there. The standard of football played there was beyond reach.
While in England Hans was the football coach for the staff of the musical production of Bend It Like Beckham for six months in 2014 and 2015 and appeared in the official poster. The musical was based on the iconic movie released in 2002 that treated women's football in England with respect and featured an football-mad teenager of Indian descent (played by Parminder Nagra), playing football, and featured Kiera Knightley as a teammate and Jonathan Rys Meyers as their coach early in their acting careers. (Note, my 2012 book profiling the global women's game Beyond Bend It Like Beckham, was a nod to the importance of that movie culturally for our sport.)
Hans and her parents had a British passport so she did not encounter the visa problems in England that Chauhan did. However, that passport was an issue with the All India Football Federation as she could not play with the national team as a dual citizenship holder, which has been an issue on the men's side as well. In 2019 she explained that, "I am in the process of converting my citizenship to Indian. It's not an easy procedure and I'm trying very hard."By that time, Hans had returned to India to play with Sethu FC and is now with Bangalore United FC of the Indian Women's League. Interestingly, though she was born and raised in India, she was the only English player in the IWSL team rosters. In Bangalore, Hans is also a football head coach with a fitness brand which owns training centers in the area. She also helps to teach local coaches and expand the firm's football offerings to members. She has played for a variety of clubs across the country as well as for a men's Amateur League side in 2018.
Indian Women's League Review
The Indian Women's League is run by the All India Football Federation and earlier this year completed its fourth season, with 12 teams from all around the country, with two from Bengaluri, divided into two groups in the first stage.
Group A included:
Baroda Football Academy from Baroda, Gujrat on the northwest coast of the Arabian Sea
BBK Dav FC from Amritsar, Punjab in the far north of the country
FC Kolhapur City from Kolhapur, Maharashtra from southwest India
Kickstart FC from Bengaluri, Karnataka from south central-India
KRYPHSA from Imphal, Manipur in the far northeastern portion of the country, near Myanmar
Sethu from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, from the far south
Group B included
Bangalore United FC in Bengaluru, Karnataka from south-central India
Bidesh XI FC in Assonora, Goa from southwest India on the Arabian Sea
Odisha Police FC in Bhubaneswar, Odisha in east central India
Kenkre FC in Mumbai, Maharashtra in west central India on the Arabian Sea
Sreebhumi FC in Kolkata, West Bengal in east central India.
Gokulam, Kerala in Kozhikode, Kerala on the southern Arabian Sea coast
Unfortunately the league only ran for a few weeks, starting on January 24 and ending on February 14, 2020. That's why players like Devi and Hans play on multiple teams through the year, because the senior women's league is run for such a short duration. With the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup and Women's Asian Cup being held over the next two years, we hope that the federation will sink more funds into developmental soccer and establish a league that runs for 6-8 months as the top of the aspiration pyramid for women in the region.
This season, KRYPHSA and Sethu from Group A and Gokulam Kerala and Kenkre FC advanced to the semifinal playoffs, where hosts KRYPHSA defeated Kenkre 3-1 and Gokulam Kerala defeated visiting Sethu 3-0. Gokulum Kerala won the final over Kryphsa 3-2.
Past champions include Eastern Sporting Union (3-0) winning over Rising Student's Club in the first season in 2016-17, with Rising Student's Club reversing the previous year's result in 2017-18 by beating Eastern 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 tie. In 2018-19 Sethu defeated Manipur Police SC (3-1).
There have been very few imports in the league across the seasons, which include English/Indian Tanvie Hans with Bangalore, long-time Nepalese international Sabitra Bhandari with Gokulam Kerala as well as recently capped Ivory Coast international Esperance Agbo and another Nepali international in Anita Basnet with Sethu. In past seasons, a few have come from Nigeria and Uganda. Sabitra Bhandari is the league's second all-time scoring with 31 goals in two seasons behind Bala Devi, who had 38 in two seasons and is now at Rangers (see above)
Bhandari joined Nepal's national women's team in 2014. In December 2019, at the South Asian Games, she became the highest scoring Nepali woman footballer with 38 goals, beating Anu Lama's record of 35. Unfortunately, her team, which was host to South Asian Games, fell to India 2-0 in the women's final. India has won the Gold Medal for all three tournaments in which women's football has been held, dating back to 2010 and then again in 2016. She had 16 goals for Gokulam Kerala in the most recent 2019-20 season and was the leading scorer in the league. Bhandari plays for the Armed Police Force Club in Kathmandu women's club in the national league. She told the Katmandu Post in March of this year that she grew up in Simpani in Lamjung, in a large family of four sisters and two brothers and her grandmother. Her father was a health post official and money was tight. She explained that, "I never had proper gear or boots or even a ball. I grew up playing football with a ball made out of socks. But it is because of the lessons that that sock ball taught me that I'm where I am today." She ended up playing football with boys, which was not widely praised in the conservative nation. She said, "My father and mother tried to discourage me from playing with the boys but I managed to convince them. They always trusted me."
She trained for a month in 2014 with APF, which signed her on a contract for Rs5,000 (US$41), which would eventually be raised to Rs8,000 (US$65), and became a constable with the force. That same year, in 2014, she was called up to the national women's team and debuted internationally at the third SAFF (South Asian Football Federation) Championship in Pakistan and scored in her debut.
Note: the South Asian Women's Football Championship is a different competition from the South Asian Games Tournament, with the latter being a multi-sport event. The former has held five championships since 2010, with India winning each time, defeating Nepal in the Final on 4 occasions and Bangladesh in 2016. Nepal hosted both tournaments in 2019 and fell to India 3-1 in the Final of the SAWFC and 2-0 in the South Asian Games Final (SAFF) with Bala Devi—now at Rangers in Scotland—scoring a brace for their third consecutive gold medal. India's goalkeeper Aditi Chouhan, who did not allow a goal in five matches, turned provider when she found Devi with a long ball upfield for her first goal and an 18th minute lead that would hold. Both sides won their semifinals: Nepal 4-0 over Sri Lanka and India 4-0 over Bangladesh.
In 2019, Bhandari was signed by Sethu FC, a club based in Tamil Nadu. After playing one season for Sethu, she switched to Gokulam Kerala this year. She explained why she plays in India, "In India, all of the teams are tough. Here in Nepal, except for the three departmental [Nepal Police, APF and Nepal Army] teams, we don't really have to prepare for the others….Women's football needs more exposure, internationally and domestically. There are not enough leagues for us to play in so a lot of players are going abroad. In India, they have state leagues and more opportunities to play throughout the year. These leagues and tournaments are opportunities to identify new players and build your game."
Bhandari discussed the recent regional championship defeat to India and the gap between the two countries when she said, "We have the ability to win but they [India] have teamwork. We haven't been able to work effectively as a team on the field. Our team is not balanced either. Small mistakes are costing us the game."
Bhandari, already playing abroad, has dreams to take her soccer career even further abroad: "My dream is to play in a European league. I have speed and I have the finishing. No South Asian defense can keep up with me."
Bangladesh's Sabrina Khatun and a Look at their National Women's League
Sabina Khatun (26), a full and former youth international for Bangladesh is from Satkhira, Bangladesh. She scored 6 goals in one season at Sethu in 2018 and has played in the Maldives, with two different clubs at home in Dhaka and is now with Bashundhara Kings, again of capital city Dhaka. She was leading the league with 15 goals in 5 matches when play was suspended for the Coronavirus pandemic (see below), but the Kings were declared champions. The league third season and had 7 teams, with 3 teams form the capital Dhaka. She has played for the national team for 11 years, the last four as captain.
At home in Bangladesh, the BWFL or Bangladesh Women's Football League, was due to run from February to May this season until its suspension in mid-March due to the Coronavirus global crisis. Sabina Khatun ran away with the Golden Boot with 15 goals—6 more than teammates Krishna Rani Sarkar with 9 and Tohura Khatun with 8.
The league was initially launched in 2011 and ran for two seasons before being started up again by the Bangladesh Football Federation for the 2020 season.
Seven teams participated this season:
Begum Anowara SC (Dhaka)
Bashundhara Kings (Dhaka)
Nasrin SC (Dhaka)
FC Uttar Bongo (Rangput)
Cumilla United (Comilla)
Kacharipara XI (Jamalpur)
Spartan MK Gallactico Sylhet FC (Sylhet)
Bashundhara Kings were declared the Champions this season with 15 points from 5 games, with a goal difference of +51 (51-0 goals for/goals against) with Nasrin SC second after 4 games with 9 points and a +6 goal difference.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey
