For Bhaichung Bhutia it was a journey to the unknown when two former India stars, Bhaskar Ganguly and Surojit Sengupta, spotted him and gave him the offer to come to Kolkata. The boy from Tinkitam was only 16 then.

Ganguly remembers the day. “In the 1992-93 season, State Bank of India organised a coaching camp for the under-16 boys in Gangtok. Sengupta and I were in charge. We were very impressed with Bhaichung and asked him to come to Kolkata. He was iffy, but we persuaded him. Thank god he did, or who knows, Indian football might have lost out on a special talent,” Ganguly recalled.

On their return to Kolkata, Ganguly and Sengupta spoke about the ‘young boy’ to the then East Bengal coach, Shyamal Ghosh, and club secretary, Paltu Das. Soon, Bhutia was on trial at one of Kolkata’s biggest clubs.

“We wanted talented youngsters as backups for first-team players. In the 1993-94 season, six footballers from the Tata Football Academy came for trials as well. But from the outset it was clear that Bhaichung was special. His fitness was outstanding, and he had a thinking head on his young shoulders. The club gave him a contract and it was the beginning of a path-breaking career,” Ghosh said.

The first challenge for Bhutia was to earn the trust of his seniors, some of them big names in Indian football. “A lot of talents have failed to take the pressure of the Kolkata Maidan and gone awry. For a teenager, it was a mountain to climb. I knew I had to take special care of him. And he was determined to do well. My main task was to keep him focused and ensure he didn’t give in to the provocations that big cities offer,” Ghosh said.

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