Delhi Dynamos’ Adil Khan in action against FC Goa.The world of football is littered with examples of decisive interventions by friends, acquaintances and even complete strangers in shaping the careers of the game’s greatest stars. Stories such as Cristiano Ronaldo’s childhood friend Albert Fantrau sacrificing his own career for the sake of his compatriot’s, never fail to strike an emotional chord, not just with the football crowd but with humanity as a whole. International Adil Khan, the Delhi Dynamos FC’s defender-cum-defensive midfielder, revealed one such person from the past who helped kickstart his innings in football during a chat with indiansuperleague.com. Adil was no different from the hundreds of Goan kids who begin playing the game in the village fields and deciding that they too want to become professional footballers. Watching matches on TV and live at the local stadium only strengthened the resolve in the fuzzy-haired player who has represented Sporting Clube de Goa and Mohun Bagan. But the first obstacle Adil faced was in his own home. “My brother supported me a lot but my father didn’t want me to become a footballer, he wanted me to study,” Adil recalled. “My good friend Jack Durado was very close to my father, they had a good relationship and my father used to listen to him a lot, so he was able to convince my father to send me for football (coaching).” “He knew a lot about football, he used to follow football, both international matches and national matches, so he encouraged me and told me, ‘ok, you go ahead and play football and make your career’. So if it had not been for him it would have been difficult,” he added. Durado did not stop there. He introduced Adil to the village coach and told him to take the youngster in his team. ‘Zuze Sir’ was Adil’s first coach and that is when the youngster started learning important things about the game, before that he was just playing with the other kids. Adil is in fact grateful to all the coaches who helped shape his career. His next coach was Jude Sir in the under-15 age group selection who helped him a lot and motivated him. Finally, there were the coaches at the Sesa Football Academy where Adil enrolled to realise his dream, who groomed and polished the uncut diamond. “Vishwas Gaonkar, he is one of my all-time favourite coaches. Then Anthony D’Souza. There were 2-3 coaches at the academy who really supported me and turned me into a footballer and helped me to improve year by year,” Adil remembered. Adil says he is taking all these names because he didn’t become a footballer just by himself. “These people are responsible for my success. They even facilitated my entry in the Sporting Clube de Goa set-up for whom I would go on to play for five years,” he acknowledged.
