Exploring the heart of Indian Football: The Travellers Guide to Indian Football Series

What makes Indian football so unique? 

It is a question that has no single answer and that, perhaps, is the point. Indian football does not belong to one city, one league, or one style of play.

It lives in the narrow lanes of Kolkata, the wrestling akharas of Punjab, the forgotten grounds of Hyderabad, the conflict-scarred valleys of Kashmir, and the misty Himalayan slopes of Sikkim.

The Travellers Guide to Indian Football, a YouTube series by Sportfolio Productions, sets out to find that answer not in boardrooms or broadcast studios, but on the ground, among players, fans, coaches, and communities who keep the game alive every day.

The result is not a neat narrative of success or failure, but a portrait of a sport held together by belief, memory, and culture.

Kolkata: Where Football is identity

To understand Indian football, you have to begin in Kolkata.

Here, football is not introduced; it is inherited. You are born into allegiances: Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Mohammedan Sporting. These are institutions, some older than independent India itself, carrying histories shaped by colonial resistance, migration, class, and faith.

On the Maidans, football has thrived for over a century, producing players, rivalries, and legends that define the national imagination. Episode 1 captures this inheritance in everyday moments. The fierce derby culture, the packed galleries, the taxi drivers debating starting line-ups, everything reinforces one truth: in Kolkata, football is not entertainment, it is emotion.

This is a city where victory is demanded, and mediocrity is rejected, where fans travel hundreds of kilometres for a match, and where wearing the jersey means carrying the weight of history. To play here is to be tested not just technically, but psychologically.

For generations, Kolkata was Indian football’s centre of gravity. Even today, its influence lingers, proof that culture, once established, can outlive systems.

Watch Episode 1: Kolkata - YouTube

Punjab: Where competition breeds champions

If Kolkata is football’s emotional heart, Punjab is its physical engine.

From village tournaments to state competitions, the culture is built on rivalry, reward, and relentless competition. Football here exists alongside wrestling, kabaddi, hockey, and cricket, but it survives because it offers something Punjabis value deeply: dignity through excellence.

Local tournaments draw thousands. Prize money runs into lakhs. Commentary flows in Punjabi, half analysis, half comedy, echoing across fields late into the night.

Punjab’s legacy is carried by icons like Jarnail Singh and institutions like JCT FC, guided by the legendary Sukhwinder Singh. The series also points to Ranjit Bajaj’s Minerva Academy as a natural extension of this mindset. What began as a grassroots project in Punjab has grown into one of Indian football’s most globally visible development stories, capped by Minerva’s recent Gothia Cup victories in Europe.

And then there is Manisha Kalyan. Earlier this week, she transferred to Alianza Lima (Peru), becoming the first Indian footballer to join a top-division club in South America. This marks her third overseas club after Apollon and PAOK.

From Hoshiarpur to Europe, Manisha’s rise has redefined what is possible for Indian women footballers. In a country where women still have to justify playing sport, her presence on European pitches sends a powerful message: visibility changes belief.

Punjab’s story shows what happens when sport is treated seriously, not just sentimentally.

Watch Episode 2: Punjab - YouTube

Hyderabad: A forgotten capital, fighting back

Hyderabad’s football story is often told in fragments, usually beginning and ending with Syed Abdul Rahim. But Travellers Guide to Indian Football reminds you that while Rahim Saab shaped India’s greatest era, the city’s contribution to the game runs far deeper.

Under the guidance of Rahim Saab, India won Asian Games gold medals, finished fourth at the Olympics, and earned global admiration for its style of play. A Hyderabadi through and through, he was not just a coach but an architect, shaping generations of players with discipline and quiet authority.

Another icon from the city, Yousuf Khan, was part of the generation that gave Indian football technical credibility in the 1950s and 60s, representing the national team at a time when India competed on equal footing with Asia’s best.

These names are only fragments of a much larger story. Hyderabad didn’t produce legends occasionally; it produced them routinely. But then, that structure eroded.

Local leagues weakened, grounds disappeared, and pathways narrowed. What remained was the memory of a city that once set standards rather than chased them.

The modern revival doesn’t arrive through romanticism, but organisation. Sreenidi Deccan emerged as a symbol of intent, a club that has invested steadily in infrastructure, youth development, and professionalism, re-establishing Hyderabad’s relevance within the I-League ecosystem.

Their rise suggests that revival doesn’t require reinvention, only reconnection. That reconnection is perhaps most clearly visible in the women’s game.

Soumya Guguloth, who grew up in Telangana and rose through India’s age-group system to become a full international and plays for East Bengal FC, represents a generation that Hyderabad nearly lost. She isn’t an exception, but as a reminder, players like her were always here.

Watch Episode 3: Hyderabad - YouTube

Kashmir: Football as survival

In Kashmir, football carries a different weight.

Here, the game is not just about competition; it is about connection. In a region shaped by political conflict and prolonged instability, football has remained one of the few spaces where people gather freely, passionately, and without division.

Long before modern leagues or social media exposure, Kashmir produced footballers who proved that talent from the Valley could survive and succeed in the Indian game. Mehrajuddin Wadoo, Irfan Kathua Ishfaq Ahmed, and Abdul Majeed Kakroo are not just names from the past; they are reference points.

Wadoo’s journey from Srinagar to captaining clubs in the national league system and later transitioning into coaching, gave Kashmiri football its first modern proof of continuity. Ishfaq Ahmed, a prolific forward, carried Kashmir into the national consciousness at a time when very few players from the region were visible at the top level.

Kakroo, playing in an era with even fewer pathways, represented something just as important: precedence.

Young footballers like Danish Farooq and Muhammad Hammad don’t speak about them in abstract terms; they speak about them with familiarity. They know the stories. They know where they came from. They know what it took to leave home, adapt to different cultures, and still return with pride intact.

That sense of continuity finds its most visible modern expression in Real Kashmir FC.

The club’s emergence is a structural correction. For the first time in decades, Kashmiri footballers had a professional home within the region, a team that allowed them to play in front of their own people rather than leave to be noticed. Real Kashmir didn’t create football culture in the Valley; it legitimised it.

Matches have continued during curfews, unrest, and uncertainty not as acts of defiance, but as acts of normalcy.

Watch Episode 4: Kashmir - YouTube

Sikkim: Football above the clouds

In Sikkim, football lives closer to the sky.

Football here is part of daily life, and the series captures it as it is. Schools finish early so children can train. Tournaments mark festivals, national holidays, and community celebrations. Youth football thrives, even as senior participation declines under the weight of livelihood and responsibility.

From this environment emerged Bhaichung Bhutia.

Sikkim’s greatest footballing son, born in Tinkitam, a small village tucked away in South Sikkim, Bhaichung, went on to become one of the most influential footballers India has ever produced.

More than the numbers, Bhaichung changed perception. He was the first modern Indian footballer to convincingly bridge the gap between domestic success and international credibility, scoring against established Asian sides, holding his own in Europe, and carrying Indian football through a period when visibility was scarce.

Today, coaches and academies in Sikkim work not for medals, but moments, hoping that a single child, inspired by a match, will return to training the next day. Football here teaches life before it teaches tactics.

Sikkim’s lesson is simple and profound: culture can survive without infrastructure, but growth cannot.

Watch Episode 5: Sikkim - YouTube

What this journey reveals

Across regions, languages, and histories, one truth repeats itself: Indian football is held together by people.

Not by perfect systems. Not by television ratings. Not by trophies alone.

Parents sending their children far from home. Coaches working without pay. Fans showing up even after defeat. Communities treating football as inheritance rather than product.

The series makes one thing clear: infrastructure matters, governance matters, but culture matters more. Without pride, belief, and continuity, no system can succeed.

Through The Travellers Guide to Indian Football, Sportfolio Productions documents the game as it truly exists, uneven, emotional, fragmented, and fiercely alive. Their work does not romanticise struggle, but it refuses to ignore it.

By placing people at the centre of the narrative, the series preserves stories that would otherwise disappear between seasons and statistics.

Watch the full playlist: The Travellers Guide to Indian Football by Sportfolio Productions