Teenage football sensation from Manipur takes first leap on to big arena

A picture, as the enduring cliché goes, is worth a thousand words. Sunil Chhetri, captain of Bengaluru FC and a legend of Indian football, has his arm casually around a young player. Huidrom Thoi Singh is standing alongside a man he has idolised since he first started kicking a football around. They are in Bellary in Karnataka for a pre-season training camp and having signed a three-year deal with Bengaluru FC, Thoi and Chhetri are now teammates. Thoi is still a teenager. It is the stuff, as another enduring cliché goes, that dreams are made of.

Thoi found himself at the doorstep of a professional career after graduating from the Reliance Foundation Young Champs (RFYC) academy in Navi Mumbai. He was among the second batch of students scouted to come on board at RFYC, founded in 2015, with the vision to play a part in making India a future footballing superpower. Thoi received a full scholarship and spent four years training under the tutelage of experienced international and Indian coaches.

The Manipur boy also received high-quality education at the nearby Reliance Foundation School in Koparkhairane, providing him with a holistic environment to hone his skills, with additional support through dedicated departments like sports science and sports psychology. So even as he takes his first steps towards a playing career in the big league, Thoi can draw confidence from the sturdy foundation that the nearly half a decade spent at RFYC has provided him. And at their pre-season camp, the top brass at Bengaluru FC didn’t take long to spot how “comfortable and competitive” Thoi appeared, and the “hunger to compete” he displayed in training.