Indian Football: Meet Suhail Bhat who is on Guardian's Next Gen 2022 list as one of 60 Best Young Talents in World Football

In Indian Football news, the 17-year-old Suhail Bhat has been named on Guardian's Next Generation 2022 list. The Kashmiri teenager is listed as one of the 60 best young talents in the world of football by the British daily newspaper, The Guardian.

This is a rare honor for a footballer from India to be named in the best list of an esteemed UK daily.

From Antonio Nusa of Club Brugge to Bayern Munich's Mathys Tel, The Guardian included footballers from various clubs. In total, they picked 60 of the most talented players born in 2005.

Indian Football: Who is Suhail Bhat from India?

Born on April 8, 2005, Suhail Ahmed Bhat currently plays as a forward for the I-League club Indian Arrows. In 2017, Bhat was selected from a football camp in Srinagar to join the Sports Council Football Academy.

Suhail was first called up for the Indian national under-16 football team in January 2021. He scored on his debut against the UAE as India earned a 1-0 victory over the hosts in Dubai.

Suhail Bhat always wanted to play for India on the international level. But he struggled before putting pen to paper because he worried that if he joined the India U16 team, his academic pursuits would suffer, last year The Goal reported.

Bhat is a student at the Shah-i-Hamdan Educational Institute in Bemina, Srinagar.

Sajid Dar is Bhat's coach and Jammu & Kashmir Sports Council Football Academy's honorary technical director.

Dar first noticed Bhat in one of the Sports Council's "Mission 22" scouting missions. The scouting missions involved searching for talent in the 22 districts of J&K at the time to identify potential players. He was chosen in 2017 for the U-13 category as a forward from the Srinagar camp.

The Guardian in their column dubbed Sajid Dar to be the long-term successor of India's striking legend Sunil Chhetri.

"This hard-working striker was identified as one of the brightest talents in the Kashmir region even before he was a teenager. Willing to run at defenders and full of self-belief, he has excelled at every youth level he has been thrown into so far – scoring on his Under-16 debut for India against the United Arab Emirates in 2021 – meaning that there are high hopes that the 17-year-old will eventually be the long-term successor of India's striking legend Sunil Chhetri," the British daily wrote on their website.

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