Sangita Basfore: Battling the odds to dare India’s World Cup dream

The thin frame and short haircut belie a decade of international experience that Sangita Basfore wears easily on her slim shoulders. Fresh from playing a key role in the Indian women’s team qualifying for the 2026 AFC Women’s Asia Cup in Australia, the diminutive midfield general is now waiting eagerly for the draws for the continental showpiece on 29 July.

“If the draw is little favourable, we can finish in the top six and qualify for the Women’s World Cup in Brazil in 2027. We have never played at the highest level and it will be an awesome experience before I call time on my career,” remarked the 29-year-old Basfore.

The job at hand will be, of course, a much tougher one, with India likely to be kept on Pot 4. The other countries in the fray are Australia, Japan, DPR Korea, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Philippines, Uzbekistan and Chinese Taipei.

It was Basfore’s call to raise the bar so that India can look beyond the Asia Cup, the team’s success at which went viral during their final week in Thailand — and she certainly walked the talk, scoring both goals for the hugely creditable 2-1 win over the higher-ranked hosts.

The euphoria over such a feat — at a time when their men’s counterparts are struggling to keep alive their hopes of a ticket to the AFC Men’s Asia Cup — was short-lived, to no one’s surprise.

Basfore, employed by paramilitary force Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), is back at her posting in Siliguri, in north Bengal — though she expects to join training for her club’s continental assignment soon. And speaking to National Herald on a video call, Basfore said it was time for her to get ready for East Bengal’s AFC Club Cup campaign in Malaysia next month.

“Hopefully, I will get a release from my employers to play for the red-and-gold outfit as they have qualified to represent the country after winning the Indian Women’s League (IWL). A number of the women who were a part of our Indian team in Thailand play for East Bengal — though unfortunately, I couldn’t be a part of their IWL campaign due to a injury at that time,” she said.

Having started her international career at a time when the likes of Bem Bem Devi ruled the roost, Basfore tasted her first big success at the SAFF Championships — though one of her biggest regrets remains missing out on the last Asian Cup in 2022 at home.

“We qualified as hosts but I was laid low by an anterior cruciate ligament injury. Even my teammates didn’t get to play eventually, though, because of the pandemic as Covid struck our camp. The team had worked very hard during the pandemic to qualify for the 2023 World Cup, but it wasn’t to be. Thankfully, we have another window of opportunity now,” she said.   

Sangita’s journey, much like most of her peers in the national team, has been one of pursuing a passion for the beautiful game against all odds.

A chat with her convinces one of her courage of conviction — starting with the kind of footballers she has idolised to building her game as a defensive midfielder. For a woman footballer in India to have role models such as Tony Kroos and Casemiro is an unusual enough business, but she said she is in absolute awe of the way the two former Real Madrid heroes influenced the game.

“It was sometime in 2018, during a tournament in Spain, that the national coach was happy with my game as a holding midfielder and wanted me to grow into the role. Around that time, I kept watching videos of the Brazilian Casemiro and got an idea of the workload he took on without even realising it, along with scoring goals. It’s exhausting, but that is the way I would like to play my game,” she signed off.