I enjoy saving goals more than scoring: Pranav

Every kid that loves football dreams of donning their national team jersey and scoring a goal in front of their fans. Well, almost every kid. The India U-17 Men’s National Team has one such boy, who, it can be said, is an exception to that. Goalkeeper Pranav Sundarraman is one of the 10 players, who has been inducted into the Indian squad that will participate in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-17 Asian Cup after the Qualifiers last year, and has improved at every step since then. However, what sets him apart from most other teenagers of his age is that Pranav derives immense pleasure from thwarting the efforts of attacking players, rather than from scoring himself, All India Football Federation (AIFF) release said. When the young custodian was even younger, he had started out as a midfielder, but his love for the dark arts of defence got the better of him. “Yes, when I had initially joined the academy, I had started out as a midfielder, but as I kept playing, I realised that I had more fun stopping other people from scoring, than I did from scoring myself, or from setting up a goal for my teammates,” Pranav told aiff.com. “I guess, in a way, the whole point of football is for the fans to come and see good attacking football, and to see beautiful goals. But for me, it is the exact opposite. I enjoy saving goals more than scoring. It is not an easy feeling to describe. You either get it, or you do not,” he added. His coaches at the Bengaluru academy took notice of his propensity to keep the ball out of the net, and soon decided to give Pranav a more direct role as a protector of the goal. “It was a bit difficult for me at first. Initially, all I liked doing was to save penalties and free-kicks, but there are so many more aspects to goalkeeping, which I began to learn and inculcate in my game,” said Pranav.