East Bengal’s Ranti Martins: Super Eagle among the swarm

Strike force from Lagos: Over his lengthy stint in India, Ranti Martins has become synonymous with scoring goals. We look at the numbers he’s churned out over the last decade.

“You can’t write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be.”
– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

The setting was a familiar one. The meeting, not quite so. The dull, white walls of the tiny conference room were enlivened by portraits of the great Nigerian teams of the past. Ranti Martins glanced through them as he waited for ‘the boss’. Over the years, the striker had frequented the glass-and-concrete headquarters of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) in Abuja.

But he wasn’t sure what this was about. He waited impatiently, sipping coffee and gazing at the frames wondering what it would be like to wear the green Nigeria jersey. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi walked in. He thrust his hand out, offered him some more coffee and for the ensuing 20 minutes, the duo spoke about his future in football.

At the time, the Nigerian team was in a state of flux. With the 2014 World Cup less than a year away, Keshi wanted a larger pool of players to choose from. And he was willing to scavenge for talented players in unexplored corners of the football planet.

When the federation chiefs and national team coaches despatch their scouts to monitor players of their nationalities, India isn’t an obvious destination. The league is unattractive and cries for quality. But so prolific had Martins been that his performances caught the attention of the Nigerian media and subsequently their football bosses. He had averaged almost a goal per match and in the eight years he had spent in India till then, had won the Golden Boot thrice.

For almost 10 months before the August 2013 date with Keshi, Martins’ performances were closely watched by the NFF bosses. In December 2012, an NFF official had flown down to Goa on match day. And he was happy with what he saw. Martins scored one and assisted once in that match. Keshi himself had seen DVDs of Martins before inviting him over for a meeting.

Soon after the meeting, Keshi was quoted as saying: “Some players have been shortlisted for a call-up from some leagues most people don’t expect good players to come from. I have seen these players play and I want to give them a chance in friendlies.”

Finally, Martins thought, the ‘football God’ had smiled upon him. As he walked his way out of the building through the mazy corridors, he felt bullish about his chances. “The boss had said he would call me for friendlies. I told him to give me a call anytime he pleased and I’d be waiting…” he trails off.

***

Today, ten years after he first set foot on Indian soil and almost two years after his meeting with Keshi, the East Bengal striker, 28 years, will be awarded the Golden Boot for a record fifth time. With 17 goals in 19 matches this season, he has topped the I-League goal-scoring charts yet again. He also has four assists to his name. And earlier this season, he became the first player to score 200 goals in India. 202 goals from 228 matches for four clubs – Dempo, United SC, Rangdajied United and East Bengal.

146 of those goals have come in 164 league matches in the eight seasons he spent at Dempo.

But much before he became one of the highest-paid footballers in the country and along with it, set a host of other domestic records, the then 18-year-old Martins landed in India on a rainy evening 10 years ago, taking a giant leap into the unknown and surrendering any realistic chances of playing for his country.

While playing for King Faisal Babes in the Ghana Premier League, his agent had shown him the stars, promising Dortmund in Germany. Instead, he signed for Dempo in Goa. Abdullahi Alausa, the agent, had used his strong connections with the German club to help former Nigeria international Musa Yaro Yaro earn a contract. He had assured Martins the same.

But the terms agreed for Yaro’s deal were termed ‘slavish’ and Alausa was also accused of financial misappropriation.

The shy, soft-spoken Martins felt duped. “It was frustrating. I didn’t know what to do. Football was the only way out of poverty for me and I was desperate to play abroad,” the striker says.

Around the same time, he received the offer to play in India. Nigerian Majek Bolaji was the Dempo captain and he invited Martins over. “Earlier, Indian clubs would sign unknown foreign players, unlike today. I had nothing else to fall back on, so I agreed,” he adds.

Martins expected Mumbai to wear the charm of a European city. But his hopes crashed as his flight began its slow descent. “I glanced out of the window and saw these shanties. I walked out of the international terminal to proceed to the local airport for my flight to Goa and there was so much chaos,” Martins says. “I had heard so much about India and how it was better than Nigeria so I was told Mumbai would be like a European city.”

The green fields of Goa gave him some solace. Martins’ hometown Lagos had beaches that were similar to the Indian holiday destination but football was played largely on hard muddy grounds. Grass surfaces were a luxury.

When he joined Dempo in 2004-05, the club was going through a rebuilding phase. Martins’ arrival was low-key and without much fanfare. After all, Nigerian strikers had been in vogue for quite some time already. But with a penchant to score decisive goals and a tremendous work-ethic, Martins would go on to prove that he was the Super Eagle among the swarm.

***

HE is eagle-eyed in front of the goal as well. It’s a common sight almost every time Martins steps on to a field – lurking around the box, moving into empty spaces, slipping behind the defence, timing his run perfectly to receive the pass and, boom, finding the back of the net.
His Dempo teammate Roberto Mendes da Silva, fondly called Beto, calls Martins the ‘best striker to play in India.’ The Brazilian, regarded as one of the best midfielders to play in India, joined Dempo in the same year as Martins and they hit it off immediately. They formed an incredible partnership, leading Dempo to nearly a dozen titles. “Oohh, that was some team,” Martins swoons. “Sunil (Chhetri) as my strike partner for a couple of seasons, Beto, (Mahesh) Gawli, (Climax) Lawrence all in the midfield…I don’t think we will ever see a team like that in India.”

It’s difficult to disagree with his assertion. Dempo’s slick passing game was a joy to watch, playing in a manner no Indian club did before. Other domestic clubs grudgingly admired them, running out of ideas to halt their juggernaut. Martins won the Golden Boot thrice during this period, in the 2005-06, 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.

In those eight years, Dempo won almost everything that was on offer. They won the domestic title five times between 2005 and 2012 (two NFL crowns and three I-League titles). They also won the Federation Cup in 2004, Durand Cup in 2006 and Super Cup in 2008 and 2010. Significantly, he was the key figure in Dempo’s 2008 AFC Cup journey, when they became the first Indian club to reach the semifinals of the continental championship. “We might not have won the AFC Cup but we proved that Indian clubs weren’t there to make the numbers. I feel blessed to be a small part of it,” he says.

The mining scam in Goa resulted in Dempo slashing their budget drastically and in the exodus that followed in 2012, Martins joined Kolkata’s United SC for a record Rs1.8 crore. In his first season at Kolkata, Martins added to his Golden Boot tally, scoring 27 goals in 25 matches.

The whiff of scandal wouldn’t leave his football alone, as the chit-fund scam that rocked Kolkata football meant United SC could not pay salaries of most players that season. But unlike most others who chose to exit the sinking ship, Martins would stay on.

“How could I leave the club when it was in trouble? Money is important yes, but you need to look at the circumstances as well. At that point, the club needed us as much as we needed them,” Martins says.

United SC halted their operations a year later and Martins chose to stay in Kolkata by signing for East Bengal, with whom he has won the Golden Boot yet again this season.

Dutchman Eelco Schattorie, who was Martins’ coach at United SC and now at East Bengal, says the striker is lethal inside the box but will get even better if he learns to hold the ball better. “He is lethal inside the box. But outside the box, he has a lot to learn. He should know how to protect himself and how to lose opponents. He has to choose the right moments to make deep runs. If he does these small things, he can be a complete player,” Schattorie says.

***

JUST after a couple of seasons in India, Ranti Martins had received a call-up for the youth team when Nigeria U-20 coach Samson Siasia came calling. “We were in the middle of the AFC Cup so Dempo president (Shrinivas Dempo) informed me late. By the time I reached there, it was too late,” he says.

Martins remembers almost every important goal he has scored. Not just how he scored but also the player who assisted him. He recalls a bicycle kick he successfully pulled off from a Beto cross in a league match.

“He crossed it from the right. It was going over my head so I decided to meet the ball in the air,” he describes, flailing his arms. “It was perfect,” he adds with a smile.

These were the kind of goals and performances that got people talking about him in Nigeria until their coach Stephen Keshi summoned him for the meeting.

***

THE phone call from Keshi never came. A couple of months after the meeting, Martins was informed by the NFF officials to play in a more ‘competitive’ league in Europe. But he had made his choice long back. “Just because it’s an Indian league doesn’t mean it’s not competitive, no?” he asks.

He tried his luck at a couple of Norwegian and Polish clubs but they weren’t as lucrative financially as compared to India. “We all love the game and are passionate about it. But money also matters,” Martins says.

He was six when he lost his father, just about the time when he started playing football. His mother married another man after some time. Martins describes his relationship with his step-father as ‘not-so-good’. “Very early, I realised the need of money to lead a stable family life. I hadn’t studied beyond high school so apart from football I had nothing to fall back on. India treated me well and the clubs paid me well. I had to think of my wife and three kids,” he says. “If they feel it’s easy to score goals in India, so be it. I did all I could to change their perception.”

Scoring goals, he asserts, has gotten tougher with every passing season. “The young Indian players are good. They have the strength that the earlier generation lacked. Technically too they are getting better. It’s a tough league that has its own sets of challenges,” Martins says.

With the ISL, the level of competition has only increased. The cash-rich tournament has brought him back to Goa, where it all started for him as a teenager a decade ago.

And he hopes a return to Goa will be a good omen for his return to the national team. “That’s the only regret I have in my career. Not playing for my country. The world is taking ISL seriously. Who knows, if I do well this season, the boss will finally give me a call…” The NNF might not have liked his story, but nothing stopped Ranti Martins from writing his own.