Kolkata: After nearly 18 months, Chinglensana Singh will be training with the senior India team. Sana, as the Bengaluru FC central defender is known in football circles, was among 26 probables named on Wednesday by coach Manolo Marquez for his first assignment– the Intercontinental Cup in Hyderabad from September 3-9. Syria and Mauritius are the other teams.
“It is a dream for every player to be part of the national team and I am no different. It’s been a long wait but I have been doing what I can to get back. I think my best is yet to come,” Singh told HT from Bengaluru on Wednesday. He has played 11 times for India.
A regular starter for India, Singh, 27, had opted out of last year’s Intercontinental Cup and SAFF Championship because his family home had been torched in the violence that broke out in Manipur in May 2023. For 50 years, Singh’s family had lived in the Khumujamba Meitei Leikei neighbourhood of Churachandpur in Manipur. The football pitch adjacent to his house, which Singh had built, too was destroyed. Singh’s family took refuge in Moirang, about 30km between Imphal and Churachandpur.
“Even now, we can’t go back there,” Singh said.
Singh is a Meitei, which comprises 53% of the state’s population, but where he lived people from the Kuki tribe were the majority. The two groups of different ethnicity have been locked in a bitter, violent clash that has led to displacement, damage to properties and over 200 deaths. Singh had to contact an Army officer who helped his family leave the neighbourhood and move into an Army relief camp. “At the moment we are homeless,” Singh had told HT on May 10, 2023.
He had returned to Manipur then after being struck in Hyderabad for five days as violence roiled the state and shoot-at-sight orders issued.
Singh said he is now building a house in Moirang. Members of his family are still put up at the house of former India defender Salam Ranjan Singh who plays for Gokulam Kerala in I-League.
When Singh made his India debut in 2021 against Oman, Marquez was his club coach at Hyderabad FC. “He was my coach for three and a half years. I know what he is looking for in every player and his style of playing,” said Singh who left Hyderabad FC in January.
During the 2022 Durand Cup when Hyderabad FC played in Imphal, Marquez visited Singh’s house in Churachandpur. When Singh couldn’t fly of Hyderabad after the 2022-23 season had ended, Marquez was with him and Yasir Mohammed who is also from Manipur.
In 2023-24, Marquez, 55, joined FC Goa. This season, he will manage FC Goa and India.
As one of the three over-23 players, Singh was a late addition to the Asian Games’ squad but his last senior international was on March 22, 2023 against Myanmar in a three-nation tournament in Imphal. Since pulling out of Inter-continental Cup and the SAFF Championship, both of which India won, Singh had slipped in the pecking order with Anwar Ali and Sandesh Jhingan being then head coach Igor Stimac’s first choice in central defence. Mehtab Singh and Rahul Bheke were used when Jhingan or Ali, or both, were not available.
Jhingan is recovering from an ACL injury he suffered in the 2024 Asian Cup but Ali has been called even though he joined training at East Bengal only last Friday. Mohun Bagan Super Giant goalkeeper Vishal Kaith’s omission is the only major surprise in the list.
India are 124th in FIFA rankings and will open against Mauritius, who are 179, on September 3. They will play Syria, ranked 93rd, six days later. A short preparatory camp will be held in Hyderabad from August 31, All India Football Federation has said in a media release on Wednesday.
The probables:
Goalkeepers: Gurpreet Singh, Amrinder Singh, Prabhsukhan Singh Gill.
Defenders: Nikhil Poojary, Rahul Bheke, Chinglensana Singh, Roshan Singh Naorem, Anwar Ali, Jay Gupta, Ashish Rai, Subhasish Bose, Mehtab Singh.
Midfielders: Suresh Singh Wangjam, Jeakson Singh, Nandhakumar Sekar, Naorem Mahesh Singh, Yasir Mohammad, Lalengmawia Ralte, Anirudh Thapa, Sahal Abdul Samad, Lallianzuala Chhangte, Lalthathanga Khawlhring.
Forwards: Kiyan Nassiri, Edmund Lalrindika, Manvir Singh, Liston Colaco.