Three football players of Indian descent currently playing in Europe

The fact that India – a country of 1.4 billion people – has a football team that is ranked 104th in the world is scarcely believable. Admittedly, the sport lags behind the likes of cricket and kabaddi in the popularity stakes but, even so, the nation should surely be able to rank higher than countries such as Lebanon and Vietnam. It was hoped that the Indian Super League would pique youngsters’ interest and promote football as a sport, but the league has tailed off somewhat in recent years. There are some footballers of Indian descent who ply their trade in Europe and you can even bet on them with online bookmakers such as PaddyPower, who provide betting and free offers on football and other sports.

Unfortunately, there are no players of such heritage playing in top leagues such as the Premier League, Seria A or the Bundesliga. That doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be great additions to the national team setup, should manager Igor Štimac be able to convince them to switch allegiances. Unfortunately, Bayern Munich’s Sarpreet Singh doesn’t feature on this list, despite being of Indian heritage, due to the fact that he has been capped six times by New Zealand. Here are three players that could join the Blue Tigers in the future though.

Danny Batth

Danny Batth has been a staple of the English football league for over a decade, ever since he broke into the Colchester United team back in 2009. In the 13 years since, he has amassed 422 appearances in the English game, most recently helping Sunderland achieve promotion back to the Championship after four long years in the third tier.