Meet Eugeneson Lyngdoh, Bengaluru's lynchpin

October 19, 2016. The fading stages of the first half of Bengaluru FC's semi-final home leg against AFC Cup champions Johor Darul Ta'zim. The visitors had taken a significant step towards a second successive appearance in the final with an early goal and, missing their regular attack through suspension, were sitting back deep in their half.

Bengaluru then won a corner through their unflagging captain Sunil Chhetri, who converted the resultant kick with a perfectly placed glancing header. Two-all, game on. The Bengaluru team raced as one towards the player wearing jersey number 14, whose pinpoint delivery had led to the goal. Chhetri pointed a finger at him, acknowledging his role in the goal.

Eugeneson Lyngdoh, the number 14, had done it before against Johor, scoring a screamer of a goal from the centre of the field in the first leg when Bengaluru were defending stoutly against relentless attacks. He would do it again later in the home match, helping Spanish defender Juan Antonio put the cherry on top of a 3-1 win with another outstanding free-kick, from which any teammate would have been hard-pressed to miss scoring.

Also read: Doctor, pioneer, footballer, leader - the remarkable story of T Ao

Rewind nine months and it all looked very different for Lyngdoh. Bengaluru FC had been the early pace-setters in the I-League season when they went to the Cooperage for an evening game against Mumbai FC, a team with which they have cultivated a spicy rivalry. Mumbai were ahead with two early goals when Lyngdoh limped off the field on the hour-mark after a tackle by Mumbai FC's Srikanth Ramu.

"We didn't think it was as serious at the time, but it turned out to be a fractured fibula," says Lyngdoh. The injury would rule him out of the game for two months, a layoff during which the team experienced some turbulence. While Mohun Bagan marched on to an unbeaten run of 11 matches, Bengaluru were looking disorganised in comparison. The lowest point came in a 2-1 defeat to Lao Toyota in an AFC Cup group match in February.

Soon after, though, Lyngdoh returned to the starting eleven. It was no coincidence that Bengaluru's spirits picked up, along with their performances, and within weeks they had secured their second I-League title in three seasons.

Lyngdoh has been an anomaly among Indian footballers in several ways. Contrary to the trend of debuts at a young age -- Bhaichung Bhutia shot into the spotlight in 1993 when he wasn't yet 17 -- Lyngdoh first played for the national team in March 2015 aged 28.

Born in Mawngap village, about 25 km away from Meghalaya's capital Shillong, Lyngdoh spent most of his childhood in boarding schools, including a spell at Bengaluru's upscale Bishop Cotton.

Football occupied the winter holidays, when Lyngdoh would go back home. "We would bet 10 bucks on each game -- the winner would get all the money that was collected," he says. "That's how I started playing football."

The son of an engineer, Lyngdoh enrolled in an engineering course in Pune -- but football remained on his mind. "When I reached college, I realised engineering was not for me and I didn't attend college much," he says. "I ended up playing for the university and got a back year as I had failed in some subjects. I went back home and played football and decided not to go back to college."

He was just 20 when he signed his first contract with Shillong-based Ar-Hima (later to be called Rangdajied United). What followed was five years of living a dream -- he would watch matches of the Shillong Premier League with his brother and cousins. They particularly relished watching the local derbies between Ar-Hima and Shillong Lajong; the boys would watch the games and then go home and replicate the actions of the players they'd just seen.

Lyngdoh's trademark is a sense of calm on the field, a cool head that allows him to react faster than most and exploit his skills on the ball. It's a quality that excited the former England international Steve Hodge and former Tottenham Hotspur player Gary O'Reilly, who were commentators during the Indian Super League 2015.

"When I first saw Eugeneson, I thought he had a good body shape for an attacking midfielder," says Hodge. "He was not the biggest player but was very mobile and could change direction well. He also had a decent change of pace, which is vital for a midfielder."

O'Reilly remembers him as a "very intelligent player in an attacking midfield position" for his ISL franchise FC Pune City. "His passing was crisp and his movement off the ball, excellent," he says. "There was always a sense of excitement when he had the ball, as if something good might happen."

It wasn't always thus, as Lyngdoh himself admits. A turning point in his career came in April 2010 when Ar-Hima met regional rivals North Imphal Sports Association (NISA) in a second-division match in Tinsukia, Assam.

"They (NISA) are known for playacting, and 35 minutes into the game one of our Mizo players pushed one of theirs," says Lyngdoh. "The guy fell down and started simulating, and our player got a red card. I went and slammed his chest and I got a red card. It was a crucial game and we lost. It reflected on my character; I learnt from all these mistakes and I am a calmer person now."

Not long after this incident, top-division football came calling in the shape of cross-town rivals Shillong Lajong, who had made the jump to the top division in 2009. After two unremarkable seasons, Lyngdoh rejoined his old club -- now called Rangdajied United and playing in the I-League.

Donning the number 10 jersey for Rangdajied United proved to another turning point as he led a young side and inspired them to finish above the relegation zone in their maiden season in 2013-14. His coach was Santosh Kashyap, who remembers him as an "excellent player and a thorough gentleman". Lyngdoh scored one of two goals in a 2-0 win over Mohun Bagan at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, a win Kashyap describes as one of his most memorable as coach, and one that caught the notice of a certain Ashley Westwood, then in his first season with newly-formed Bengaluru FC.

Westwood, it was often said, approached Indian football with a simple dictum: if he found an opposition player particularly tricky to deal with, he would sign him. Lyngdoh, in his first season for Rangdajied, helped them pull off two notable results against Bengaluru -- a 1-1 draw during a Federation Cup match in Manjeri, Kerala, that forced Bengaluru out of contention for the knockout stages and later a 3-2 win in Shillong.

Lyngdoh didn't score in either of these matches, but his presence in midfield did enough to convince Westwood of the need to sign him on, especially since Liberian midfielder John Menyongar had plans of retiring from football following the season (which saw Bengaluru win their first league title in their first full season).

"Johnny (Menyongar) was a former teammate of mine and he used to keep in touch," says Lyngdoh. "He asked me if I could join the club. I decided to join because of him. My only motive was to become a better player when I joined. I worked hard under the coaching staff after coming and everything just fell in place."

About Lyngdoh's move to Bengaluru, Kashyap says: "When he was with me, he used to be a little lazy and laidback. He's improving all the time. He's got great creativity, and he's a dead-ball specialist. He has scored some beautiful goals. He has taken full advantage of the move to Bengaluru to turn himself into one of the most complete players ever in Indian football."

Lyngdoh capped his debut season by winning the Federation Cup; BFC beating Dempo 2-1 in the final. The scoring began when Lyngdoh was pulled down inside the box and Chhetri converted the penalty.

The I-League that began a week later would be just as dramatic, with Lyngdoh getting the Best Midfielder of the League award on the final day but BFC conceding the title at home, on a rain-soaked Kanteerava pitch, to Mohun Bagan. It was heartbreaking stuff; Bagan needed just a draw to win the title and equalised with three minutes of regulation time left to take the title literally from under the nose of the champions.

The India debut handed out by Stephen Constantine came sandwiched between an unsteady start and a stirring finish to Bengaluru's I-League campaign; his stats at the end of the season read nine goals and 16 assists in 33 appearances for his club.