‘I’ve gained confidence after Brazil goal’
MUMBAI: “Pehle idhar tha, abhi idhar hai (first it was here, now it is here),” Manisha Kalyan gestured, pulling her right hand up from around her waist to the head, outlining her rise in selfbelief since that goal.
That goal here refers to the one etched in the history of Indian football, as well as in Kalyan’s heart and mind. The 20-year-old became the first Indian woman and the first from the country at the senior level to score a goal against Brazil, her cracking left-footer from the left resulting from a swift counter-attack earning the equaliser for India against the hosts in Manaus. Brazil ended 6-1 victors and India also lost the next two matches in their exposure tour to Brazil building up to the 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup next month in India, but Kalyan’s effort remained a key highlight. Not just for the team and followers of Indian football, but for her as well.
“I have gained a lot of confidence after scoring that goal,” Kalyan said in a media interaction organised by the AIFF on Saturday. “Scoring a goal against a side like Brazil gives me a big boost. I feel like I can score more goals in the future and contribute to my team.”
Even the family, watching her daughter create a moment of magic in her village of
Mugowal in Punjab, could feel the reverberations of that strike. The odd past dissent voices of her village when the young girl would head out to play football with the boys have also turned present cheerleaders. “Many villagers came to meet my parents and congratulated them, saying I did the right thing (of pursuing football),” said Kalyan.
Those voices were just a handful, Kalyan added, and it mattered little to her anyway for she had the complete backing of her parents in whatever she chose to do. Be it trying out basketball and sprint races in school or heeding the advice of her physical education teacher of switching to football.
After eighth standard, she moved to a school with better infrastructure for the sport, even if it meant cycling 15km from her house. It opened the path to her entry into top-level football in the country, earning a call-up to the Indian U-17 team for a BRICS event in 2018. Kalyan
also played, and scored, for Gokulam Kerala FC in the AFC Women’s Club Championship this year and won the Indian Women’s League in 2019-20.
Speaking about the journey and achievements of her rising career fails to match the kind of smile she dished out at the mere mention of Ronaldinho. An ardent fan since she was a girl, her handle when she joined Instagram was named “mkd”, short for Manisha Kalyan Dinho. “My friends in my village used to call me dinho,” Kalyan said, the grin still intact.
To score a goal in the land of her idol, thus, made it all the more special for Kalyan. But the youngster realises the milestone of playing Brazil in Brazil and scoring against them was only an event after all. “It does not change our main aim, which is to do well in the AFC Asian Cup. All of that was done so that we could prepare better for the tournament. We want to do well in Asia,” she said.