Juniors 25–1, Seniors 1–18
Eight India games in eight days, four teams, three countries, three storm stoppages. The under-17 women are going to the Asian Cup without conceding a goal. The two senior teams conceded 18 in Kolkata. Then the ISL came back.
India’s under-17 women finished their Asian Cup qualifying group in Selayang, on the edge of Kuala Lumpur, on Sunday with a 4–0 win over the hosts, Malaysia. It closed a week in which they scored 20 goals in three games, conceded none and took the only place on offer in Group E for next year’s AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup in Suzhou, China. On the same Sunday in Kolkata, the senior women lost 8–0 to Russia.
Those two results are the week in miniature. Between 4 and 11 October, four India teams played eight games. The two junior sides, the U17 women in Malaysia and the U17 men on a two-match tour of Myanmar, won four and drew one, scoring 25 goals and conceding one. The two senior sides played three games at home in Kolkata, lost all three and were outscored 18–1: the men 6–1 by Uruguay on Tuesday, the women 4–0 and 8–0 by Russia on Thursday and Sunday.
The comparison is unfair to both, and it is still the right one to make. The juniors played Iraq, Syria, Malaysia and Myanmar, opponents India’s age-group teams are expected to beat, though no India U17 women’s side had ever won a game by 14 goals. The seniors played a two-time world champion and a Russia side ranked 42 places above India’s women in FIFA’s world ranking. Read together, the eight results show where Indian football is winning, in Asia’s age-group competitions, and how far its senior teams remain from the level they were brought to Kolkata to measure themselves against. Four days after Uruguay, the Indian Super League opened its season, and a 16-year-old from the U17 system came off the bench.
| Date | Team and fixture | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Sun 4 Oct | U17 men v MyanmarFriendly · StarCity Sports Club, Thanlyin | D 1–1 |
| Mon 5 Oct | U17 women v IraqAsian Cup qualifier · Selayang · lightning, half-hour stop at 64′ | W 14–0 |
| Tue 6 Oct | Men v UruguayFriendly · Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata · lightning stop at 27′ | L 1–6 |
| Wed 7 Oct | U17 men v MyanmarFriendly · StarCity Sports Club, Thanlyin | W 4–0 |
| Thu 8 Oct | U17 women v SyriaAsian Cup qualifier · Selayang · thunderstorm stop at 58′ | W 2–0 |
| Thu 8 Oct | Women v RussiaFriendly · Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata | L 0–4 |
| Sun 11 Oct | U17 women v MalaysiaAsian Cup qualifier · Selayang | W 4–0 |
| Sun 11 Oct | Women v RussiaFriendly · Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata | L 0–8 |
| Juniors | U17 men and U17 womenFive games: won four, drew one | 25–1 |
| Seniors | Men and womenThree games: lost three | 1–18 |
Tuesday, Kolkata: level at 1–1, then the lightning
Uruguay, coached by Diego Forlán, started Darwin Núñez, José María Giménez and Rodrigo Bentancur and were ahead in the 11th minute: Pramveer Singh was penalised for a foul on Federico Viñas and Núñez scored the penalty, PTI reported. Eleven minutes later India were level. Ryan Williams’ effort was not held by goalkeeper Thiago Cardozo and Anirudh Thapa scored from the rebound.
It made Thapa the second Indian to score against Uruguay. The first, Manas Bhattacharya, scored in the 35th minute of the only previous meeting, a 3–1 defeat at the Nehru Cup on 25 February 1982, according to RSSSF, also in Kolkata.
Five minutes after the equaliser, lightning stopped the game. Gulf News put the halt at 27 minutes; Flashscore reported that the drinks break in the 26th minute turned into a suspension. Most reports put its length at between half an hour and 34 minutes. Uruguay scored within moments of the restart, Maximiliano Araújo turning in Nahitan Nández’s low cross for 2–1 at 28 minutes, and that was the half-time score. After the break Rodrigo Zalazar (53), Araújo again (59), Juan Manuel Sanabria (71) and Rodrigo Aguirre (86) made it six.
“I fully blame myself. We should not give any excuse,” Khalid Jamil, India’s coach, said afterwards, as reported by PTI. He named “the lack of concentration of all the players” and added: “I want to play more matches at this level.”
It ended a hard window. Between 25 September and 6 October India played three 2026 World Cup sides and took one point: 1–1 with Panama in Bengaluru on 25 September, Williams scoring in the 41st minute; 0–4 to Brazil at the Salt Lake Stadium on 3 October, before an official attendance of 51,402, according to ThePrint; and then Uruguay. The crowd for the last game is itself in dispute. The official attendance in FIFA’s match data is 37,307, the figure UNI reported; the National Herald put it at about 30,000. ThePrint, which reported that tickets in some blocks had been cut by about 90 per cent, to ₹199, and complimentary passes handed out, counted about 15,000 at kick-off in a stadium that holds 68,000.
Thursday and Sunday, Kolkata: twelve conceded, seven first caps
The women’s two games against Russia were played at the Kishore Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata. Crispin Chettri, the head coach, used them to look at new players. Six won first caps on Thursday: Babysana Devi Thingbaijam and Malati Munda started, Shubhangi Singh replaced Munda in the 66th minute, and Cindy Colney, Dhurga Perumal and Sibani Devi Nongmeikapam also made debuts. Goalkeeper Nandini added the seventh on Sunday.
India held Russia until the 40th minute, when Iana Sheina scored. Kira Petukhova, a substitute, scored at 60 and 65 minutes, and Iana Svistunova added a fourth at 81. “A 0-4 loss is not acceptable to anyone, not to me, the players or the fans,” Chettri said before the second game. “I take full responsibility for it.”
Sunday was worse. Russia led 5–0 at half-time, with Darina Ishmukhametova (21, and a penalty at 42) and Marine Achoian (25 and 45+1) scoring twice each and Daiana Kishmakhova once (29). Natalia Mashina scored twice in two minutes after the break and Elizaveta Semenova made it eight at 74. The teams have now met four times, and Russia lead 22–0: 8–0 at the Turkish Women’s Cup in February 2021, 2–0 at the Pink Ladies Cup in Sharjah in February 2025, and the two games in Kolkata.
Babysana spoke for the new players between the games. “I was a little nervous when I got to know I’ll be in the playing eleven, but it also felt very good,” she said. “I learned a lot from my first match.”
Selayang: twenty goals, none against
The U17 women, coached by Joakim Alexandersson, opened their group against Iraq on Monday 5 October and led 7–0 at half-time. Lightning stopped the game for half an hour in the 64th minute, with India 9–0 up. It finished 14–0, the biggest win by any India U17 women’s side; the previous best, Khel Now reported, was 12–0, against the UAE in 2014 and Sri Lanka in 2018. Anushka Kumari scored five. Silky Devi Sorokhaibam and the captain, the centre-back Abhista Basnett, scored two each, and Thandamoni Baskey, Nira Chanu Longjam, Pritika Barman, Joya Kabul Hasan and Alva Devi Senjam one each.
Syria on Thursday took more patience. Anushka scored in the sixth minute and again in the 54th, and an approaching thunderstorm stopped play in the 58th for almost half an hour, the week’s third storm. Malaysia had beaten Syria 1–0 and Iraq 4–0, so Sunday was a decider between the group’s two unbeaten teams. Redima Devi Chingkhamayum scored from distance in the 29th minute; after the break Pritika Barman, Anushka and Nidhi made it 4–0. India finished with nine points from nine and a goal difference of plus 20.
Anushka scored in all three games, eight of India’s 20. She is 15, from Rukka in Jharkhand’s Ranchi district, and became a striker, after starting as an attacking midfielder, under Alexandersson at Indian Arrows. When the AIFF profiled her in August 2025, she said she wanted “to keep scoring goals and, one day, take this team to the World Cup”.
India reached the knockout rounds of this tournament for the first time this year, losing 3–0 to China in the quarter-finals. The qualification has been reported as the first time any Indian side, at any age and including the senior team, has qualified for consecutive editions of a Women’s Asian Cup. The claim rests on the word “qualified”. The senior women played every edition from 1995 to 2003, before the AFC introduced qualifiers, and were at the 2022 tournament as hosts before qualifying for 2026.
The other five junior goals came in Myanmar. Mehrajuddin Wadoo’s U17 men drew 1–1 at the StarCity Sports Club in Thanlyin on 4 October: Aung Myat Thar scored for Myanmar in the 42nd minute and the captain, Dallalmuon Gangte, equalised with a penalty in the 73rd. On Wednesday India won 4–0, Wadoo’s first win as head coach, UNI reported. Gangte scored again, Kyi Thar put through his own net, and Kamgouhao Doungel and Hrishikesh Charan Manavathi completed it.
The ISL comes back
Four days after Uruguay, the 2026–27 Indian Super League opened with a weekend of four games and 12 goals. Williams, who had played all three India friendlies, set up the season’s first goal on Saturday at the Sree Kanteerava, a left-footed strike from outside the box by Borja Martínez in the 22nd minute. SC Delhi led Bengaluru FC 2–1 at half-time, through Rodriguinho (26) and an own goal by the Bengaluru debutant Menno Koch, who turned Juan Peña’s cross into his own net (32). Borja equalised in the 75th minute and Koch headed the winner from the substitute Soham Varshneya’s delivery in the 89th.
At Fatorda, Irfan Yadwad put Chennaiyin ahead in the 64th minute and Chiki headed FC Goa level from a free kick 11 minutes later. On Sunday Kerala Blasters, under Ashley Westwood, won 2–0 against Inter Kashi in Pune with goals from Vibin Mohanan (18) and Andre Green in stoppage time. And Churchill Brothers won their first ISL match. Gaurav Bora, who according to myKhel had gone seven ISL seasons without a goal, headed the club’s first in the league from Vincy’s cross in the 57th minute; Sebastián Gutiérrez added a solo goal in the 86th, before Sergio Llamas scored a stoppage-time penalty for Mumbai City.
The weekend’s record came in the same game. SC Delhi brought on Thokchom Diamond Singh in the 74th minute. FIFA’s match data gives his date of birth as 13 June 2010, which made him 16 years and 119 days old and the youngest player in ISL history: the record in the league’s own published list belongs to Alfred Lalruotsang, 16 years and 239 days old when he played for NorthEast United on 20 February 2020, and no younger player appears in FIFA’s data for the two seasons since. ISJ found no league statement on the new mark. The youngest starter remains Punjab FC’s Pramveer Singh, at 17 years and 189 days in December 2024.
Diamond Singh is from Bishnupur in Manipur. He started at TYDA Football Academy at four, came through the AIFF-FIFA Talent Academy and was in India’s squad at the AFC U17 Asian Cup this year. “My father and mother have done everything for me,” he told Open in August.
What comes next
The men have the SAFF Championship in Dhaka, with Pakistan and Maldives in their group, and two games in New Zealand, the first time India’s men have played there, against a side they last met in 2018. The two overlap, since the New Zealand games fall on 12 and 15 November, around SAFF’s semi-finals and final, and Khel Now has reported that an under-23 or reserve side is likely to go to Dhaka. The U17 men have a group to win in Malaysia. For the U17 women the next step is the one they missed this year: India went out in the quarter-finals in 2026, and in Suzhou the semi-finalists go on to the World Cup Anushka Kumari was talking about at 14. On this week’s evidence, the gap that matters in Indian football is no longer between India and Iraq. It is between the last eight and the last four, and between the juniors and the teams they are meant to become.
NorthEast United beat Mohun Bagan Super Giant 1–0 in Guwahati on 12 October, Jithin MS scoring in stoppage time.
In Baku, India’s U15s finished third in Group K with ten points, behind Senegal and Cameroon on 12. They beat Laos 4–2, Cameroon 2–1 and Bahrain 4–3, drew 3–3 with Grenada and lost 6–1 to Senegal. In Tier C of the tournament stage on 28 October they lost 2–1 to Honduras and beat Trinidad and Tobago 3–2; the tier finals are on 30 October.
Sourcing. Uruguay: PTI (via Deccan Chronicle and ThePrint, with Khalid Jamil’s quotes), Outlook, The Telegraph’s t2, Free Press Journal, Gulf News, Flashscore, the National Herald, Khel Now, UNI (attendance), ThePrint (crowd and tickets); RSSSF for the 1982 Nehru Cup game. Panama and Brazil: Khel Now, Prothom Alo, ThePrint. Russia: Khel Now match reports (8 and 11 October), Asianet Newsable, Telangana Today (Chettri and Babysana quotes); AIFF and Wikipedia for the 2021 and 2025 meetings. U17 women: Khel Now (Iraq, Syria), Gulf News, Daily Jagran and National Herald (Malaysia), AIFF (draw, finals, Anushka Kumari profile of 26 August 2025), Wikipedia (Suzhou dates; India’s Women’s Asian Cup record). U17 men: The Hans India, UNI. ISL: Khel Now, myKhel, UNI, Onmanorama; ISL (youngest-debutant list, March 2025; Pramveer Singh, December 2024); Open (Diamond Singh, 12 August). What’s next: AIFF (New Zealand tour), Telangana Today (U17 qualifiers), Khel Now (Baku). Rechecked on 29 October against FIFA’s match data (api.fifa.com) for the Panama, Brazil and Uruguay line-ups, goals and attendances, the Russia fixtures, the ISL opening weekend and NorthEast United v Mohun Bagan, Diamond Singh’s and Pramveer Singh’s dates of birth, the women’s ranking of 16 June 2026, the Baku results and the SAFF and New Zealand fixtures; Wikipedia for the U17 women’s record wins and 2026 quarter-final, the senior women’s Asian Cup record, Alfred’s date of birth and the 1982 Nehru Cup’s venue (Calcutta).
Corrections to the carousel. Slide 5: Núñez’s penalty “12′” — 11′ per FIFA’s match data, PTI, ThePrint, Outlook and Free Press Journal; only t2 gives 12′. Slides 5 and 15: “Next: New Zealand” leaves out the SAFF Championship in Dhaka from 4 November (India v Pakistan, India v Maldives), per FIFA’s match calendar. Slide 7: Babysana’s quote (“…wearing the India jersey and stepping onto the field gave me a very proud feeling”) — not found in any published source; her reported quotes from Telangana Today are used instead. Slide 7: Babysana’s age (25) and the entry minutes for Cindy Colney, Sibani Devi Nongmeikapam (66′), Dhurga Perumal (77′) and Nandini (46′) — not found in any match report; only Shubhangi Singh’s 66′ is confirmed. Slide 8: “2 headers” for Abhista Basnett — the reports give her goals (70′, 86′), not how she scored them. Slide 10: “No Indian side of any age, senior included, had made two Women’s Asian Cups in a row” — the senior women played five editions in a row from 1995 to 2003 and three from 1980 to 1983, before qualifiers began in 2006 (Wikipedia); the reported claim (National Herald, Daily Jagran, myKhel) is narrower, the first Indian side to qualify for consecutive editions. Slide 15: “24–26 Oct” are the dates of India’s U15 group games; the Baku festival runs to 30 October (Khel Now). Slide 15: the 7:30 pm kick-off for NorthEast United v Mohun Bagan matches FIFA’s match data but is not used.
Flag. The youngest-ISL-player record (slide 14, 16 years 119 days) is not confirmed by the league or any report ISJ found. It rests on the date of birth in FIFA’s match data (13 June 2010) and his entry in the 74th minute (FIFA; Khel Now confirms a second-half appearance). Alfred’s date of birth, 26 June 2003 (Wikipedia), gives 16 years 239 days on 20 February 2020 (Wikipedia says 240). No player younger than 17 appears in FIFA’s data for the 2024–25 and 2025–26 seasons; Pramveer Singh (born 20 June 2007) started for Punjab on 26 December 2024 at 17 years 189 days. Seasons before 2024–25 rest on the league’s own list. Alfred’s surname is spelt Lalruotsang by Wikipedia and Sportskeeda and Lalroutsang on the slide. Uruguay crowd: 37,307 (official, in FIFA’s match data; UNI; used on slide 4), about 30,000 (National Herald), about 15,000 at kick-off (ThePrint). Uruguay stoppage: began at 27′ (Gulf News, National Herald) or 26′ (Flashscore); lasted 30 minutes (t2), more than 30 (Gulf News) or 34 (PTI via ThePrint, Outlook). Thapa’s goal: 22′ in FIFA’s match data and most reports, 23′ in Khel Now, which also describes Williams’ effort as a free kick. Uruguay’s goalkeeper is Thiago Cardozo in FIFA’s line-up and PTI’s report (Gastón Cardozo in one other). Russia’s ranking: 27th and India 69th in FIFA’s women’s ranking of 16 June 2026, the edition FIFA’s data still returns as current, as in the October match reports. The 12–0 previous-best wins are confirmed by Wikipedia (UAE, Dhaka, 21 October 2014; Sri Lanka, Thimphu, 9 August 2018). The 2–0 at the 2025 Pink Ladies Cup is in FIFA’s match data (23 February 2025, Sharjah); the 8–0 in February 2021 is not (only India’s 2–0 defeat by Serbia, in Alanya, appears from that trip), and Wikipedia describes India’s games there as friendlies after a second tournament was cut back, so that result rests on the AIFF and Wikipedia. The claim that these were the women’s first internationals in Kolkata could not be confirmed and was cut; none of the India women’s matches in FIFA’s data from 1997 was in Kolkata, but that record is incomplete. The Russia scorers and minutes, the debutants and their entry minutes, and the U17 Malaysia and Myanmar scorers come from the reports named above and were not re-checked; FIFA’s data has no detail for these games. Quotes from Khalid Jamil, Crispin Chettri, Babysana, Anushka Kumari and Diamond Singh were not re-found at fact-check. Anushka Kumari’s age of 15 is ISJ’s inference from the AIFF’s August 2025 profile, which gave her as 14 and not yet 15. ISL minutes: Bora 57′ and Gutierrez 86′ (UNI, Khel Now) or 56′ and 87′ (myKhel); Green 90+4 (Khel Now) or 90+3 (Onmanorama); Llamas 90+3 (UNI) or 90+5 (Khel Now). FIFA’s match data gives Bora 56′, Gutiérrez 86′ (with an assist credited to Stendly Fernandes), Green 90+4, Llamas 90+4 and Irfan Yadwad 63′ (64′ in the reports and on slide 12). U17 men’s qualifiers: Wikipedia gives the whole round as 8–20 November; the 11–20 November group dates and the May 2027 finals window are Telangana Today’s and were not re-checked.
Photographs. As credited on the carousel: AIFF, ISL, IndiaSportsHub.
