Denson Devadas comes into the Hero Indian Super League backed by an impeccable sporting and footballing pedigree. His grandfather was a national level hockey player while his father represented the Services in the Santosh Trophy. And everybody else in his family was interested in football, something intrinsic to the spirit of Devadas’ home state, Kerala. “I’ve been playing ever since I was a kid. I would roam around with the ball all day,” the Chennaiyin FC midfielder told indiansuperleague.com in an exclusive interview.Devadas followed in his father’s footsteps, playing as a striker and eventually captaining the school team at the local Army school and later his college team. However, it was his manager’s decision to change his position during his first stint as a professional footballer that Devadas cites as the defining moment of his career.“If I had continued to play as a striker, I would be nowhere today. That shift from the striker’s role to the midfield was a life-changing incident,” Devadas says of the decision by the redoubtable TK Chathunni, then coach of Viva Kerala, to pull him back to the middle of the pitch. Chathunni had coached several of India’s top clubs in the past, winning the National Football League with Mohun Bagan in 1997-98.There was no looking back for Devadas thereafter. His next decisive move was to Kolkata and United SC in 2007, where he encountered fame and fortune, helping Bengal to the 2010 Santosh Trophy title, an achievement he proudly remembered. “That was Bengal’s first Santosh Trophy title in 11 years, so it was a great moment. I also scored two goals in that game,” he recalled. Bengal beat Punjab 2-1 in the final. His rousing performances for the state and club earned him a move to mighty Mohun Bagan, where he was named the maroon-and-green’s best player in the 2012-13 season.Devadas, who cites fellow midfielders Zinedine Zidane and Andres Iniesta as his footballing idols, is looking forward to the ISL and the influx of international players to Indian football. Training and playing alongside and against top quality international footballers who will be participating in the ISL will be a great experience for Indian players, Devadas felt. “We can compare our differences with them very closely. So we have to look at them and learn and begin to follow them from now on itself,” the soft-spoken defensive midfielder said.Apart from getting the chance to rub shoulders with top international players, Devadas is looking forward to the overall impact that the ISL will have on Indian football, expecting the infrastructure to improve as a result. “It is an opportunity for Indian football to come up like anything,” he said.Devadas is also confident that fans will turn out in full force, because, as he says, “everybody loves football”!