While India’s footballing history in recent years isn’t as rich as some of their Asian counterparts like Japan and Qatar, the Indian national football team has produced its fair share of top-quality players and captains over the years.

The Blue Tigers, as the Indian national football team is fondly known, has enjoyed some success in the past. 

Once considered the best team in South Asia, the Indian football team won two gold medals at the Asian Games in 1951 and 1962.

They also finished fourth in the 1956 edition of the Olympics and qualified for the 1950 edition of the FIFA World Cup prior to withdrawing from the tournament.

India has made four appearances in the AFC Asian Cup as well and finished as runners-up in the 1964 edition of the competition.

The top footballing nation among the SAFF countries, India has won the SAFF Championship a record eight times since the tournament’s inception in 1993.

While India’s current FIFA ranking of 121 doesn’t make for kind reading, the Blue Tigers’ highest FIFA ranking was in February 1996 when they were ranked 94.

Three-time South Asian Games champions, India’s only noteworthy tournament triumph after the turn of the century was their AFC Challenge Cup triumph in 2008.

While there have been some memorable matches and tournaments like an away draw against Qatar and India’s Intercontinental Cup victories, there hasn’t been much collective success on a consistent basis for the national team.

One player who has been a part of the squad for almost two decades now is the legendary Sunil Chhetri.

Chhetri, who is India’s top goal-scorer of all time, has led India with pride and has joined the pantheon of legends who have led the national team on the international stage. 

While the first-ever captain of the national team was named Mani Das in British India, here’s the complete India football team captain list.

India football team captain list

Captain Name

Tenure

Mani Das

1924

Syed Abdus Samad

1926

Gostha Pal

1933

Sanmatha Dutta

1934–36

Karuna Bhattacharya

1938

Talimeren Ao

1948

Sailen Manna

1949–54

Sayed Khwaja Aziz-ud-Din

1955/58

Samar Banerjee

1956

Sheikh Abdul Latif

1959–60

PK Banerjee

1960–61

Chuni Goswami

1962–64

Jarnail Singh

1965–67

Arun Ghosh

1967–68

Inder Singh

1969/73

Syed Nayeemuddin

1970

Chandreshwar Prasad

1971

Arun Ghosh

1971

Mohammed Habib

1972

Magan Singh Rajvi

1974

Pradip Chowdhury

1976–77

Gurdev Singh Gill

1978

Prasun Banerjee

1980

Bhaskar Ganguly

1981–82

Shabbir Ali

1982

Prasanta Banerjee

1982/84

Parminder Singh

1982

Brahmanand Sankhwalkar

1982–83

Pem Dorji

1982

Biswajit Bhattacharya

1982

Monoranjan Bhattacharya

1982

Sudip Chatterjee

1984–86/88–89

Atanu Bhattacharya

1986

Abdul Majeed Kakroo

1987

Babu Mani

1987

Mauricio Afonso

1989

Bikash Panji

1991

Krishanu Dey

1992

V. P. Sathyan

1993–95

Bruno Coutinho

1995–96/97/99

I. M. Vijayan

1996/98/99

Carlton Chapman

1997

Jo Paul Ancheri

1999/2001/03

Roberto Fernandes

2000

Bhaichung Bhutia

2000-11

Basudeb Mondal

2001

Debjit Ghosh

2003

Shanmugam Venkatesh

2005

Renedy Singh

2009

Climax Lawrence

2011

Sunil Chhetri

2012–present

Subrata Pal

2015

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu

2016/2023

Sandesh Jhingan

2017

Subhasish Bose

2018

Photo credit: Alamy