FIFA perhaps one sports that is followed by the entire globe with equal enthusiasm and cult. And today the entire globe looks forward to the FIFA U-17 World cup that is on-going and India has been its host.
Among many talented insurgencies into the National FIFA team, Abhijit Sarkar is one distinct hero of the same as he stands high in the mid-field, carrying his childhood on his shoulders which was loaded with the chains of despair and poverty.
His first face-off with football was when the demised ace footballer Carlos Alberto (during his 2014 FIFA Kolkata tour) gifted him a red football in 2014 and said:
Live your life with it. Every night, when you will sleep, this football should be your night-long companion.
Abhijit has always been guided by his local coach Ashok Mondal, who once used to worked in a pen manufacturing company but had left his job only to help aspiring but poor kids to become great footballers.
Abhijit was financially weaker than most of the underprivileged guys in the lot and it was Mandal who purchased him a pair of boots and a jersey before starting his formal training.
To what Abhijit Sarkar is today, apart from the limelight he got from his brilliant take on football, is that he comes from a family that was mostly driven by poverty.
Abhijit was born in a small town named Bandel in the outskirts of Kolkata and was the only child of his parents, Haren and Aloka Sarkar.
Haren is an auto-rickshaw driver cum fish seller at a local mandi and earns a profit of mere Rs. 200-250 or even less daily.
Abhijit’s mother Aloka, also contributes a surplus of Rs. 25 daily to the family income by binding bidis at a local grocery shop.
As helpless the circumstances could be, Abhijit’s parents couldn’t afford to buy him the accessories for football. But seeing a brilliant footballer inside their aspiring son, they actively motivated him to take up his dream seriously.
Abhijit’s parents completely recognized their son’s caliber and so were convinced that their son is going to shine harder the sun someday because of the power he had in his legs and brain.
Abhijit’s real journey started when he went to represent West Bengal at the sub-junior national championship and was spotted by the selectors.
He instantly grabbed an opportunity to get enrolled at the All India Football Federation Academy in 2013.
Later after one small in-ground training session, he went to Kolkata for trials for the AIFF academy and then Goa.
And then Abhijit did shine harder than the sun itself.
Today, as the talented young mid-fielder steps into the outdoor arena to take his international rivals head-on, the entire nation looks forward to a game that would set this shining star on the top of the canvas of fame and till forever.
We take pride in his game along with the billions of eyes which look forward to seeing him shine.
-Said his father with teary eyes in an interview.
