Sudeep Pakrashi:
Bala Devi expressed high hopes for promising Indian striker Rahul KP who donned West Ham United shirts and struck a goal for the popular English team against Borussia Dortmund in an invitational tournament on Wednesday. Rahul scored his first goal for the English team from a penalty shoot-out.
Bala, the first striker in Indian women’s football to have scored 50 international goals, said while speaking to Parallel Sports from her residence in Manipur on Thursday, “This goal will play the role of a ‘motivator’ for Rahul in the future. He will be more inspired, more hard-working to settle his place in the first team regularly.”
Bala still cannot forget the date of 6th December 2020. It was the day she scored her maiden goal for Scottish Rangers FC in the premier women’s league against Motherwell. “I still remember the day. I received several congratulatory messages from our country’s football fraternity. The more precise gift I had was the curiosity of Rangers FC’s men’s football team about me. Both women’s and men’s footballers spent leisure time at the same coffee shop after training.”
She continued, “We all had dinner at the same place. Even, both men and women footballers used to train within the same complex, at the same ground. After I scored the goal they became curious about me. So today, I also can feel how Rahul is enjoying his first goal for a premier team like West Ham. I have seen him playing in India. He is promising and now he has to be more hard-working to ensure his berth in the first eleven,” added Bala Devi.
