Soliloquy

Me and Chinglensana Singh at the Maidaan earlier this year.

It has been two days since Chinglensana Singh left Hyderabad FC, and I am yet to come to grips with his decision. It will take me a long time to get over it although I understand where he comes from and why he chose to do so. 

Being unpaid for the last year and a half, ‘Sana’ chose to terminate his contract with the club and instead signed a lucrative five-and-a-half-year deal with Bengaluru FC.

Hyderabad failed him in uncountable ways- especially after his house got burnt down last year in the riots in Manipur- and to not have cleared his wages for over a year was to have forced him into making such a decision. 

Other players may have had it easier than Sana- they did not face riots in their home states- but even they chose to leave the club, with Nikhil Poojary, Nim Dorjee Tamang and Hitesh Sharma too terminating their contracts and moving elsewhere. Mohammad Yasir, Sahil Tavora, Vignesh Dakshinamurthy and Anuj Kumar have all left on loan.

Sana arrived in Hyderabad ahead of the 2020-21 season from FC Goa and played a vital role in the club almost qualifying for the ISL playoffs. Little needs to be said about the next season, when the Yellow and Black scripted history and became the first club from the Deccan to win the league title. 

The next season, Hyderabad came second in the league, relinquishing their title to Mumbai City. Through it all, Sana distinguished himself with his rock-solid presence in the Nawabs’ defence and with his jovial nature off the pitch.

His technical ability to hold-up play, block crosses, jump to ward off threats and mark opposition attackers with ease has also made him one of the best, if not the best defenders in the country. Sana is also one of the very few ball-playing centre-backs in India, with the ability to shift from LCB to RCB with ease.

Perennially likeable, Sana became one of my favourite footballers, thanks largely to the little dances he did whenever the fans crooned for him in the East Stand at the Maidaan in Gachibowli. 

I cannot imagine him wearing anything other than Yellow and Black, but I understand that life takes precedence over emotions sometimes and I wish him and his family well. 

There will be no ‘CHING-LEN-SAANA, CHING-LEN-SAANA’ from the Yellow and Black faithful anymore, but I love him enough to know that he has made the right decision. 

Wishing Sana all the love and light that this world can proffer upon him, I hope that our paths cross again.

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