FOOTBALL | Gani hopes his SLK goals will take him back to the ISL

Calicut FC’s Gani Nigam (left) gave defenders a harrowing time with his sudden spurts in the Super League Kerala.
| Photo Credit: K. Ragesh

Ten years ago, Gani Ahammed Nigam and Malappuram’s MSP HSS came close to pulling off a big upset in the Subroto Cup international junior football tournament. With Gani scoring a goal late in the first half, MSP led 2-0 and almost close to shocking Brazil’s Colegio Estadul Santo Antonio (St. Antony’s School) in the under-17 final.

The Brazilian side somehow managed to win the title, with a goal with the last kick of the match that levelled the score 2-2 and carried the final to the tie-breaker.

“The Subroto Cup final was the turning point of my life. I scored seven goals in that tournament and that made me look at football seriously as a career,” said Gani, the Calicut FC forward, in a chat with The Hindu here on Thursday.

The 26-year-old, from Nadapuram in Kozhikode, is now looking for more such turning points in his life.

With three goals from as many matches, Gani is in fine form in the ongoing Super League Kerala (SLK) and he feels more such strikes here will help him return to the Indian Super League soon.

“I think I’m getting my goal-scoring form back. If I get a good offer in the ISL’s January transfer window, I will go,” said Gani who has been with many ISL teams, mainly as a winger, earlier.

For three years, till last season, he was with NorthEast United FC and before that with Hyderabad FC in the ISL. He was also with Pune City when it played the ISL earlier and with Mohammedan Sporting, the league’s newcomer this season, a few years ago.

Gani took to football at nine at the Kadathanad Raja FA academy close to his house. After five years there, he moved to the MSP School, where he was moulded into a fine player. And like every player in the Malappuram area, he has played a lot of sevens.

“I played my first sevens with seniors at 17. You throw away your inhibitions when you play sevens, your decision-making skills improve because the ground is so small, you have to take quick decisions,” explained Gani.

“But nowadays, sevens does not even look like football, it has become very rough, there is a lot of kicking, elbowing and fighting. It looks scary, you could get injured. I think it changed a lot in the last couple of years, but I don’t understand why because fans enjoy good, clean football.”