⚽️ HT Kick Off: Mohammed Habib: A tribute

erst, Mohun Bagan claimed he had been kidnapped. Another clip, they tried to acquire his older comrade Azam to obtain upon him. On both occasions, East Bengal managed to retain the player. When Mohun Bagan did get him, he looked Pele in the eye and had put the green-and-maroon brigade in front against New York Cosmos.

Former India captain Mohammed Habib, who died aged 74 on August 15, 2023 after a long illness, meant different things to different people. To his generation, “Bade Miya” – the nickname had as much to do with his personality as it was because younger brother Mohammed Akbar was often a teammate for club and country – was the professional they respected immensely. At a time when players sought the security of a bank or a government job, he earned only through football. Which is why he often trained more and could stretch his career to nearly 20 years in an era when information about recovery, diet, strength and endurance training was either sparse or non-existent in India.

To those older like former India winger Sukumar Samajpati, he was a left-inside forward who contributed to East Bengal’s Calcutta league title in 1966, his first year at the club. To East Bengal fans, Habib was also the player who, along with Jamshed Nassiri, Majid Bishkar, and Manoranjan Bhattacharjee, helped coach PK Banerjee get a depleted squad to punch above its weight. East Bengal gave Habib the Bharat Gaurav award in 2015.

To Kalyan Chaubey, he was a “guru” who gave him a career. Chaubey also remembers how he was always nattily turned out. “He would shave twice every day,” Chaubey said when I asked him about his coach at Tata Football Academy (TFA) and Mohun Bagan.

“Defeat was not an option”

But what stood out for everyone –from East Bengal’s general secretary Jyotish Guha, who spotted Habib in the 1965 Santosh Trophy, Banerjee, peers and Chaubey –was his attitude. Defeat was not an option for him, Chaubey said, reminiscing about the man he shared lodgings with in central Kolkata at the start of his professional career.

“If we lost, there would be no meals that night and he would be surprised if we thought of sleeping,” said Chaubey, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) president.

It was this can-do spirit that revived India in the 1970 Asian Games. Trailing against hosts Thailand, India were pathetic, Jaydeep Basu wrote in “Stories From Indian Football.” The chef-de-mission “stormed into the dressing room and called the players a bunch of cowards.” Habib, who was not the captain, reacted, rousing his mates. India drew 1-1 and went on a run that saw them beat South Vietnam 2-0, Habib scoring from 20 yards, and Japan in a bronze medal play-off.

Japan, the 1968 Olympics bronze medallists, had Kunishige Kamamoto but India would not be bowed. Shifted to centre-back from his usual right-back position, Sudhir Karmakar, along with skipper Syed Nayeemuddin, reined in the man who had 75 goals in 76 internationals and was rated highly by Pele. Kamamoto died of pneumonia aged 81 on Sunday.

It was with Nayeemuddin and Afzal that Habib joined East Bengal in 1966 from Hyderabad Telephones; Guha being impressed by a 17-year-old never shying from a duel with the formidable Jarnail Singh in the Santosh Trophy. Andhra Pradesh won the national championship that year beating Bengal, fulfilling a dream Syed Rahim could not achieve in his lifetime. The matchwinner? Habib.

In his first season in Kolkata, Habib joined a team left depleted with Chandreshwar Prasad and Ashim Moulik joining Mohun Bagan, recalled Samajpati in his autobiography in Bangla, “Khela Shurer Golpokotha”. Habib scored nine goals in his first league season, as per Gautam Roy’s coffee table book “East Bengal 100”. He was a gutsy striker whose passing range and never-say-die attitude stood out, Roy has written.

East Bengal’s dramatic comeback against BSF in the 1974 Durand Cup happened because of Habib. They trailed BSF led 1-3 before Habib, Surajit Sengupta and Subhas Bhowmick ensured a 4-3 win. In the same edition, Novy Kapadia wrote in “Barefoot to Boots”, Habib flicked up a header, chested the ball and then scored with a left-footer against Port Authority, Thailand. In the Pesta Sukan tournament in Singapore three years earlier, India overturned a 0-1 deficit against Indonesia to win 2-1 both goals coming from Habib.

Habib played for East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting in a career that began when Chuni Goswami, Aroon Ghosh and Banerjee were active as players. At a time when club football, especially in Kolkata, got precedence over international matches, he played only 35 times for India scoring 11 goals.

After retirement, Habib joined TFA as coach and with precocious youngsters such as Chaubey, Dipendu Biswas, Renedy Singh, Lolendra Singh, Anit Ghosh and Shankarlal Chakraborty beat top teams in India. East Bengal were tamed 4-0 in IFA Shield, Mohun Bagan in Durand Cup.

“Habib Sir was more than a coach, he was our “guru.” He helped inculcate a winning mentality in us and taught us how to look after ourselves. Yes, there were players who would break curfew and hit the disco nearby but most of us followed his lights-out orders in the flat provided by Mohun Bagan,” said Chaubey.

As coach on post-match media duties, Habib would start by evaluating whether his team put up a fight. Lo and behold if he thought they had not! It is worth remembering this when the attitude of India players has been questioned by the AIFF’s national team director and former head coach Manolo Marquez.

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