All About Soccer

His career as a football enthusiast started off in the right track when he joined the Assam Special Reserve Police as a player in 1995 which went on for four consecutive years. Mughato’s passion for the game never did waver ever since he decided to become a footballer.

Home, however was where he always wanted to contribute as a sportsperson and this possibility dawned when the Sports Authority of India, Dimapur, called him in to be the Football Coach on contingency basis of six months at the Sports Training Centre in November 2001. Subsequently he served as a player at the Sports Academic Centre, Assam on a higher contract basis for about one and half years.

His eventual joining in the Youth Resource and Sports Department in February 2005 is of significance as this marks his excellence as a Coach and even changed the whole history of football in the state. He steadily but surely put Nagaland in the map of the National Sports Arena in football and here, he talks about the Nagaland Team in the Subroto Mukherjee Cup and ecstatically says “in 2005, we lost in the pre-quarter, we made it to the quarter final in 2006, runners-up in 2007, and we were the Champion in 2008”. 

 “I made a self commitment to win the Tournament in five years time,” he candidly confesses but it didn’t quite take five years but a sequence of improvement from year one as was evidently seen till he brought home the Winning Nagaland Team Under-14 of the Prestigious Subroto Cup for the first time in the history of sports in the state.

Also awarded with the Best Coach title the same year at the National level, he has certainly come a long way in his profession as an athlete. His other laudable achievements include coaching the 2007 Nagaland Senior Football Team which brought home Bronze from the matches played among the North East States.

Locally, he has enormous wins to his credit as it was clearly through his efforts that Dimapur District emerged champions for two years in the State Inter District Tournament. The Dimapur Senior Team was also the champion of Dr T Ao Tournament in 2005 which played under his training. It’s also to his credit that the Zunheboto team was placed third first time in history during the year 2006.

Earlier, he represented the State on various occasions before he became a Coach himself, in the junior and senior category for the NE games in Assam, Tripura and Mizoram respectively. When he was younger, he was also part of the Nagaland Team Under-16 and Under-19 at Mizoram and Kolkatta as well as attended the Under 19 India camp in Guwahati.

Through his skilled leadership, 8 players were awarded scholarships since he took up as Coach, 7 others were selected for representing Subroto-11 at Bangladesh. He also made a Best Player out of few of them even in the National level. Two others were selected Under-14 for Indian Coaching Team and Indian Air Force Team respectively. The Under-16 Team of Nagaland in the meantime made its presence felt nationally in Punjab and emerged Runners-up last year.

However, all of thirty, this young thriving coach is not one to rest on his laurels and is still looking at ways to improve the name of the game. Even while appreciating the Sports Policy framed by the Government of Nagaland, he regrets to say that it’s not all fair for Team and Individual Games to be placed on equal footing.

“For team games like football, volleyball or hockey, if we go and participate in a tournament, we get only one chance, in the sense that if we lose, we have to wait for another year and start homework all over again, whereas for individual games like Archery or Taekwondo, if they take 10 players with them, they get 10 chances to bag a medal” he explains. He also says “it needs time to train 13-14 good players” which he said is an essential to win a match and therein, he highlights the Coaches award policy as well.

Another area he feels has to be covered up is the lack of systematic platform for the Senior Footballers. “We don’t have any academy to train Under-19 and 21,” he adds and expresses concern that this phase has to be covered up to improve the state players team.

He, however, deeply professes “our Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio is the right person to be the Youth Icon for sportspersons” as he recalls that till date no Chief Minister in Nagaland has come up with an interest in sports like him. He doesn’t forget to make a mention of the Youth Resource Department, which he said is doing a really great job.

With full of things running in his mind, he wants to make sure that his message about taking sports seriously as a profession gets across. “Through sports, you can have it all - money, name and fame,” he says and is happy that the Government is creating a lot of opportunities. One last thing he makes note of and says “I don’t know if the Government has implemented the 5% job reservation for sports or not but it’s been approved in 2007 and if this is strictly implemented, I think sports will go a long way from here.” Supplementing this, he even thinks parents will allow children to play and encourage them to take it up as a full time career.

As for him, he is happily going the Sporty way and there’s no stopping this young Coach for it was his undying passion that already brought in a lot of Winning Moments in the field of Football; but he still insists that he has a lot to fulfil through the game. “Football is my passion, a challenge to fulfil my dream,” he signs off.

Interestingly, he always wanted to be an athlete, and his childhood dream to become one, has today found a home in the spirited Football Coach who has made all the difference in the history of sports in Nagaland.

For another two years, he was signed on for Dynamo Club at Guwahati and his aspirations for the fame game led him to do a Diploma in Football Coaching from the National Institute of Sports, Kolkatta in 2000. He was also the second topper of the Institute when he finished. Soon after, the Mohameddan Sporting Club, Calcutta which was the top 3 club in the Country during that time approached him where he dutifully fulfilled its obligations.