Fleet-footed Kiyan Nassiri dribbles through weight of legacy

ATK Mohun Bagan produced a commendable 1-1 draw against Premier League campaigners West Ham United on Wednesday in the Next Generation Cup in Mumbai. Leading the Mariners from the right flank, donning the captain's armband, was Kiyan Nassiri.

Fresh from winning the Indian Super League and securing a place in next season's AFC Cup with the Kolkata outfit, the fleet-footed forward is currently in action with the ATKMB youth side, this time squaring up to the English.

"I'm a Premier League follower, knowing that these boys will play in the top flight in the next 2-5 years is incredible. It is shocking that we are playing them, I'm happy to be here," Kiyan had told The Bridge before the match against the Hammers.

If that suggested that the youngster would be wide-eyed, it became clear in the the first few minutes of the match itself that he would be anything but. Around the 7th minute, he was involved in the first flash-point. The referee ran to intervene after Kiyan was seen exchanging some angry words and some shoves with a West Ham player. A couple of minutes later, Kiyan applauded his right-back Raj Basfore as he broke down an English attack with a clumsy challenge - at the cost of a yellow card.

The tone of the match had been set. It would be confrontational. And it would be Kiyan who would be leading from the front in more ways than one.

Among those watching on YouTube as the combative captain frustrated the English side was his father, Jamshid Nassiri, the Iranian who the Kolkata football faithful had clasped to their hearts in the 1980s.

At the end of the 1-1 draw, the frustrated West Ham coach refused to identify individual stars within the Indian side, and said instead, "I thought they were really together, they had a very clear idea of what they wanted to achieve."

ISL and RFDL: Change in approach

At the impressionable age of 22, achieving so much in so little time can be a bit overwhelming, but Kiyan has learnt to not let it get to his head.

"At the beginning it was surreal when I was at Mohun Bagan in the I-League, I was just there for two games during the whole season. Right now, since last year, that has changed. I don't get fazed by it. I try to keep myself as grounded as possible," he said.

While some may think it is a demotion to play in a youth league after getting an ISL winner's medal, but for Kiyan Nassiri, it's just another opportunity to put his learnings to the test.

"Obviously ISL is much more high-intensity, the competition is higher. At the Reliance Foundation Development League (RFDL), it's more about using whatever I have learnt," he said.

When you are fighting for a place in a team which has players like Hugo Boumous, Manvir Singh, and Liston Colaco, you have your work cut out for you. While Kiyan was usually seen coming off the bench in the recently concluded season, he feels he just needs to do his due diligence to increase his game-time in the top division.

"It's all about doing well in training, the coach is there to see it. It's very competitive because I might play one day and then not play for the next week or month. I just need to turn that to my advantage and try to make a place in the team," Kiyan said.

With Manvir Singh leaving the current national team camp in Bhubaneswar due to injury ahead of the Intercontinental Cup, it remains to be seen whether Kiyan gets his maiden India call-up. The Blue Tigers head coach Igor Stimac is no stranger to the youngster's talent, and has hinted in the past that his involvement with the national team is just a matter of time.

"That was big praise from the national team coach, I'm happy about it but I just need to keep working. I wouldn't say I'm eyeing any place or anything. I'm just going with the flow, playing the games I've been called up for," he said.

A 'high' that lasted a week

Kiyan Nassiri's entry into public consciousness happened in the most dramatic of circumstances.

It was 29th January, 2022, a Saturday. This was the day when Kiyan, playing his debut match for EB, slammed three goals in thirty minutes after he came on in the 60th minute, when ATKMB were losing 0-1 to East Bengal. It was one of the most thrilling reversals ever in a derby.

One could revel in the attention which comes from pulling off something historic like that, but the young lad knew better. He did not allow that night to be his career's highlight.

"Not really (whether his career plateaued after the hat-trick). For me, the high of the hat-trick lasted about a week. It's done and dusted now. It's not a great thing to think of the past all the time. It was okay, nothing great," he said humbly.

Coming out of a parent's shadow can be hard sometimes, especially when that parent ruled the Kolkata Maidan in the 80s in a Red and Gold shirt, running riot around Mohun Bagan defences, scoring for fun.

Contrary to what most Kolkata football fans think, East Bengal legend Jamshid Nassiri believes his son has managed to carve out his own identity.

"Wherever I go, apart from Bengal, people know him as the ATK Mohun Bagan player, not that East Bengal player's son. People know him as Kiyan Nassiri. He does have more distance to cover and he is focused on that, more than listening to what others say. Whatever he is doing, he is doing on his own," the 64-year-old footballer-turned-coach told The Bridge.

"He has his own mindset. Whether it's football or studies or anything else, he knows what he wants to do," Jamshid added.

While it's only in the last two years or so that Kiyan broke into the first team and started making more appearances, there were years of hard work going on behind the scenes. His father shed some light on the same.

"He's done it step-by-step. From a young age, he was very keen on football. He played different age groups, sub-junior Bengal in 2014. It was during the Zee U-19 tournament when he was noticed by Mohun Bagan and he got called by them," Nassiri senior said.

Currently working with the Calcutta Football Club, senior Nassiri couldn't catch his son's match against West Ham in its entirety, but he did catch glimpses of it.

"I had to go for training, but before leaving I caught the start of the match, and then later watched it. The team was very organised, defending well, attacking well. These kind of opportunities gives a lot of experience to the players," he concluded.