Tag Archives: Syed Abdul Rahim – Football Coach

Syed Abdul Rahim’s role in golden era of Indian football immortalized in biopic Maidaan

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Hyderabad , ANDHRA PRADESH / TELANGANA :

Syed Abdul Rahim and Ajay Devgn in the poster of Maidaan
Syed Abdul Rahim and Ajay Devgn in the poster of Maidaan

In an era of Indians recognizing their unsung heroes and reviving their memories, a biopic on Syed Abdul Rahim, India’s most successful football coach, is all set to be released on June 23.

The teaser of the film Maidaan featuring Ajay Devgn as the legendary coach of the Indian national football team was released by Zee Films recently. It has already crossed 35 million views of YouTube in five days.

Under Syed Abdul Rahim’s guidance, the Indian team was rated as one of the most powerful teams in the sport, and the period – 1952-1962 turned out to be the golden period of Indian football.

The teaser opens with the resounding music of A R Rahman and the powerful image of the Indians playing Yugoslavia (a country now spilt into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia) in heavy rain.

It seems the bare-footed Indians lost the match against Yugoslavia as Rahim (Ajay Devgn) is shown in tears in the teaser. The film is produced by Bonny Kapoor.

According to reports, from his early days, this Hyderabad-born Rahim spotted talented boys on the football fields of Hyderabad and trained them to cobble up an Indian team.

With him as the coach of the national team, India finished fourth in the Melbourne Olympics and won the gold medal in the Asian Games of 1962 beating Japan and Korea.

Although Rahim is credited for ushering in the Golden Era of Indian football, he passed away unsung. He was never conferred with any award and many say he was too focused on coaching and never mingled with leaders or influencers to get noticed by them.

Maidaan’s teaser is a 90-second clip that tells the story of a fight against the odds by Rahim and his Indian team. The trailer opens with monochrome shots from the 1952 Summer Olympics held in Helsinki (Finland). India fared badly on that occasion and lost 10-1 to Yugoslavia in the preliminary round.

The resounding defeat did not discourage Rahim; instead, it brought out his fighting spirit.

He studied the training methods used by the European teams. Rahim studied their training and tactics and then modified the same to suit Indian conditions. He realized that Indian players had less physical stamina and there was no point copying the European methodology.

Rahim adapted the European ways to suit the Indians and it worked wonders. It must have taken Rahim’s meticulous planning and precision in training the Indians that helped the team perform great in the next Olympic Games in 1956 when India defeated Australia

On 1st December 1956, India stunned the world with the team’s excellent performance and defeating host Australia 4-2. Ace striker Neville D’Souza scored a hat trick and Krishnaswamy scored one goal.

This match is an abiding memory of the glorious era of Indian football.

Today, Indian football fans are disappointed to see Australia plays in the final phase of the FIFA World Cup while India has dropped to the bottom. Indian team employs expensive foreign coaches and support staff but the results are not commensurate with the efforts and expenses.

Sources said the filmmakers had consulted the Football legend’s son S.S. Hakim who died in 2021. Hakim was an Air Force officer who had played in the Olympics and was a highly qualified coach and referee too.

In the film, Ajay Devgn speaks the Hyderabadi (Deccani) version of Urdu. After many delays due to the pandemic and other reasons, the film is scheduled for a theatrical release on 23rd June 2023.

source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Story / by ATV, posted by Aasha Khosa / April 15th, 2023

Intelligence and education of Hyderabad’s Hakim helped raise level of Indian football

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Hyderabad, TELANGANA:

 The President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind presenting the Dhyan Chand Award, 2017 to Shri Syed Shahid Hakim for Football, in a glittering ceremony, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on August 29, 2017. Photo: Wikipedia

The name of Syed Shahid Hakim is familiar to the entire football fraternity of India. He was one of the most accomplished personalities who graced Hyderabad and Indian football as a player, referee and coach. Indeed it would not be wrong to say that there were few people in India who could match his knowledge and acumen about the different aspects of football. Besides being a well known personality in football, he also served as an officer in the Indian Air Force.

Being one of the sons of the great coach S.A. Rahim, he grew up in a football related environment. Hakim belonged to that period when Hyderabad was at the zenith of Indian football. He played with the illustrious players of India. Among his teammates were the famous goalkeeper Peter Thangaraj, D. Kannan, S.A. Latif, Yousuf Khan, S. Narayanan, H H Hamed and others. All these players were from the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

As a player, Hakim’s talent bloomed at an early age. He was at his peak in the late 1950s. He was a member of the Hyderabad state team which won the Santosh Trophy in 1957. Due to his prodigious talent and his rising status in Indian football, he was selected to represent India in the Pre-Olympic tournaments in Jakarta, Singapore and Malaysia.

It was not a surprise when he was also selected in the Indian team for the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. That was the last time that India qualified for the Olympic Games. Although India narrowly failed to enter the knockout stage of the tournament, the Games were a great learning opportunity for Hakim.

The close interaction that Hakim had with the world’s best players and coaches gave his keen intelligence some valuable insights into the tactics and training of European and South American players. These he later put into use when guiding his own trainees. This is where his education and learning proved to be a big asset. Having studied at All Saints HS, Nizam College and then Osmania University, his level of education was above many other footballers. This enabled him to interact easily with foreigners and learn from everything that he observed.

Later, after he joined the Indian Air Force, he played for the defence services team and went on to be appointed captain of the All India Services team.

After retiring from the game as a player, he continued to serve Indian football in various capacities. He became a well known referee who was among the best in India. Starting from 1970 he continued to serve as a referee for many years. In 1974 he was selected to be a member of the FIFA Referees panel which was a great honour for an Indian referee.

Thereafter, he officiated in 33 international matches and it is a record which is still not broken. No other Indian referee has officiated in 33 international matches.

But that was not the end of his distinguished career. Thereafter, Hakim became a reputed coach and coached the Indian team from 1980 to 1982 for the Merdeka Cup and Delhi Asian Games along with other coaches.

When he was 80, he fell prey to the rampaging COVID pandemic but recovered. However, despite winning the battle against the dreaded virus, his life did not last long thereafter. He suffered two strokes in rapid succession and passed away in Gulbarga where he had been admitted to a hospital in August 2021. His death left a void in Indian football which will perhaps never be fulfilled.

source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> Hyderabad / by Abhijit Sen Gupta / December 09th, 2022

Forgotten soccer sorcerer to be brought alive

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Hyderabad, Hyderabad State (now TELANGANA)  :

An undated photo of Syed Abdul Rahim.
An undated photo of Syed Abdul Rahim.

A biopic is being made on Syed Abdul Rahim, the architect of modern Indian football

More than 62 years after an Indian football team came within a whisker of winning an Olympic medal, a Bollywood movie is being made on the Hyderabad coach who made it happen: Syed Abdul Rahim.

“About a year ago, Joy Sengupta, an ad filmmaker, approached me saying he wanted to make a movie about Rahim sahab. I shared all the information with him. They expected I would ask for money. I don’t want money, I want the younger generation to know about the glorious golden period of Indian football and my father’s contribution,” says Syed Shahid Hakim, son of S.A. Rahim and a Dhyan Chand awardee.

Reliving glory

The biopic is expected to bring alive S.A. Rahim’s life, who led a stunning rise of the Indian team in the 1950s. His biggest achievement? Getting a walkover in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics against defending champion Hungary even as its Magic Magyars withdrew due to Hungarian Revolution; beating Australia 4-2 before losing to Yugoslavia 1-4 in the semifinals. At the Asian Games inaugural, Rahim’s team won gold for India as the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, watched from the VIP stand. On Friday, Zee Studios tweeted about its project: “Elated and proud to announce a story never told as @ZeeStudios_ #BoneyKapoor & @freshlimefilms come together for a biopic on India’s legendary #Football coach, Syed Abdul Rahim, starring @ajaydevgn, directed by @CinemaPuraDesi.”

Mr. Shahid Hakim, who played under his father, later coached and was a referee as well before retiring from the National Institute of Sports, Patiala, has been bombarded with calls about his father since then.

The trigger was perhaps Novy Kapadia’s book Barefoot to Boots that’s partly instrumental in spotlighting the coach, who was almost forgotten except in the rarefied field of Hyderabad’s football circles. Rahim worked his magic on Indian football teams between 1948 and 1960 bagging Asian Games gold in 1951 and 1962. In the 1960 Rome Olympics, India was jinxed in the death group ‘D’ which had Hungary, France and Peru. India lost to Hungary 2-1 and drew 1-1 with France before losing 2-0 to Peru. It was here that Balaram and P.K. Banerjee scored a goal each. In that period, the Hyderabad police team brought home five Rovers Cup trophies.

Football prophet

Rahim was a school teacher who drifted into football coaching. Noticing that Indian footballers used to dribble needlessly, he came up with the concept of one-touch football. “The player had to get the ball and pass it. A dribble would be considered a foul and a free kick awarded,” says Hakim, as he reels out names of playgrounds in Hyderabad and tournaments that used to be played here.

“People bemoan our football skills. But where are the grounds for children to play? Football is the most democratic game. One ball and two goal posts can engage 22 players. But our government is interested in promoting individual sports. Money, land, academies are gifted to players. Team games get a short shrift,” rues Mr. Hakim, promising to share all the trials and tribulations of his father with the movie-makers. “He was a strict disciplinarian. I was treated as just one of the players. There were so many talented players that we used to hide injuries, lest someone else play and take our slot. He used the 4-2-4 combination before anyone used it,” says Mr. Hakim.

While football grounds have disappeared and the beautiful game is played only by a few expats in Hyderabad, the biopic is sure to make Indians remember a time when India was a name to reckon with in world soccer scene.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Serish Nanisetti / Hyderabad – July 14th, 2018