It started with rain.
The kind that usually gives Delhi an easy excuse to stay in, order food and watch a Champions League reel instead. The kind that slows everything down, clogs the roads and makes weekday evenings harder than they already are. But this Thursday, that excuse didn’t quite hold up.
INDIAN FOOTBALL: FULL NEWS
Seven years after Delhi last saw a team calling itself its own in the top flight of Indian football, the game has returned to the capital. Not with the noise, not with the hype, not with the buzz that once surrounded it, but with Sporting Club Delhi walking out quietly to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
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And Delhi responded in a way.
There was a time when Delhi Dynamos games felt like an event. When names like Alessandro Del Piero and Roberto Carlos were enough to draw people in, making the match feel like something you didn’t want to miss even if you didn’t follow the league completely. Back then, there was curiosity, novelty and a sense that Indian football might actually be heading for something.
Since then, Indian football has gone through many phases and not all of them have been auspicious.
Cut to 2026 and Delhi is no longer a regular stop for this interview. The focus has shifted, the energy has dissipated, and the city has returned to what it knows best. But on this night, even with the rain, the traffic, and the weekday crowd juggling office and life, people showed up. Fans in Delhi show their love for Indian football as it returns to the city (Courtesy: India Today)
And they stayed.
6732 in a 60,000-seat stadium doesn’t look like much at first glance. It feels small, it’s overwhelming, and it’s easy to dismiss if you’re used to watching packed European stadiums every weekend.
Now compare that to some of the bigger clubs in India. Mohun Bagan against Kerala Blasters this season drew over 29,000. East Bengal against North East United had nearly 18,000. These are clubs built on history, identity and fan bases that didn’t appear overnight.
Sporting Club Delhi is nothing like that yet.
A newly rebranded team playing its first home game in a city that hadn’t seen its own team in seven years. In this context, 6,732 starts to feel less like a disappointment and more like something Indian football fans understand all too well – a slow start that might actually mean something.
And if you stayed there long enough, if you looked carefully, it didn’t feel like a small crowd. It felt like a starting point.
Outside the stadium, it didn’t feel like much of an event. No long queues hours before kick-off, no rush of people trying to get in. But there was movement. Groups of teenagers clicking photos in jerseys, kids kicking balls like they saw it on Instagram, families walking together trying to figure out where to go.
It was like people were coming to football again.
An emptiness could be seen inside. Large parts of the seats intact, gaps that reminded you how far sport has to go in the city. But the people who came made sure they weren’t just filling the space.
Before kick-off, the sound was already there.
Not loud, not overwhelming, but steady.
Dhol beats cut through the air, chants start from one side and slowly spread. It didn’t feel organized, it didn’t feel choreographed like the European ultras. It felt raw, a little messy, but very real.
Before the players left, Delhi made a quiet decision.
He wasn’t going to sit and go through the match. It should have been part of it.
The match itself followed a simple script. Joseph Sunny put the home side ahead, a name most in the stadium wouldn’t recognize until it flashed on the screen. Jamshedpur responded late on, Nikola Stojanovic finding the equalizer and the match finished 1-1.
But the result never became a story.
Because the story was in the stands.
NOT FULL BUT FAR EMPTY
Crowds in Delhi do not always appear in numbers.
But when they do appear, even in smaller pockets, they rarely stay quiet.
This was one of those nights.
Even with empty seats around them, the supporters who turned up refused to let the game seem even. Every good touch sparked a reaction, every run forward made people lean forward and every decision against the home side brought instant noise.
And then there were the dhols.
Anshul, Vicky, Rahul, Veeru and Sumit stood there and walked on. No breaks, no drop in energy. From the warm-up throughout, the beats didn’t stop and slowly the crowd synced up with them.
“Tell Them Tell Them”
“Jeetega bhai jeetega”
The chants didn’t come from everywhere, but they came from enough corners to matter. All the noise during the match came from the corners that mattered the most (Credit: India Today)
It was like the stadium was trying to build something from scratch.
In one of these sections, ten-year-old Riyansh sat watching his first live football match in Delhi. A Cristiano Ronaldo fan, like most kids his age, is used to watching football through highlights, YouTube edits and reels.
This was different.
This wasn’t a screen. It was not delayed. This was happening right in front of him, in his own city.
His father Anil saw it from the other side. Empty stands, lack of buzz, the feeling that football has never quite taken off here.
“He’s just a kid, but he really likes football. That’s why I’m here,” Anil said.
He didn’t expect much.
“Honestly, I didn’t have too many expectations coming in because I’ve seen how it usually goes.
Then he looked around again.
“But it was a nice experience.
And then came the turn that summed up the night perfectly.
“Having a hometown team creates a bond. I’ve never seen a crowd like this for soccer.”
This connection is what Delhi football has been missing.
And for a few hours on a rainy Thursday, he felt like it was coming back.
For kids like Riyansh, it wasn’t just a match. That was the first real moment where there wasn’t just football happening at 1.30am in Europe.
It was here.
And that changes things.
THE FANS ARE HERE. WHAT NOW?
Delhi has never lacked a sporting identity. However, football has always struggled to find its place between cricket and global football consumption.
Ask anyone about cricket in Delhi and names will immediately come to mind. Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan and many more. Ask the same about soccer players and you’re likely to get silence, or pause at best.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t interest.
Fourteen-year-old Vidhi Garg was in the stands watching intently. A young player herself, she wasn’t just there for the atmosphere, she was watching to learn.
“It’s very inspiring for me. I try to learn from these players because they are very physical and very fast,” she said.
She absorbed everything. But she also noticed what everyone else did.
“I expected more fans to come, but the atmosphere was pretty good. Better than the last game I attended.”
Next to her, her mother did not sugarcoat it.
“I was expecting a bigger audience. But I think it will get better.”
A few feet away, a little further from where the chants were loudest and the dhols hit hardest, sat Tenzin Sherab.
On a wheelchair, in a quieter pocket of the stadium, but fully locked into the game.
Not saying much, not reacting loudly, just watching every move as if it mattered.
Because it was true for him.
Tenzin is from Dharamsala and unlike many people in the stadium he has seen what football is like when the city actually lives it. He has experienced the energy in places like Bengaluru where the stands are packed and the game feels like it belongs to the people. Tenzin watched football in Delhi during the Dynamos era (Credit: India Today)
And now here he was, in Delhi, watching a city try to reinvent itself.
He had also seen Delhi before. In 2015, when Delhi Dynamos still had that streak.
“The last time I watched Indian football was when there were players like Roberto Carlos. It’s a completely different team now, but it’s good to see Delhi have a side again.”
But he wasn’t romantic about it.
“I’m used to European football and I’ve seen the football culture in places like Bengaluru, so of course the level and the atmosphere is different. But here the atmosphere is still good. I just expected the stadium to be fuller.”
And then he said what most people there probably felt, but he didn’t say it out loud.
“Football is driven by the fans. The players feed off that energy. If a lot of fans don’t show up, it affects the atmosphere.”
He paused.
“But I’m still optimistic. India has the potential. Delhi definitely has the audience. It just needs more push.”
That pressure is the missing piece. The fans are there. Children are watching. The interest did not disappear, it was just not properly nurtured.
Even on the field, the gap is visible.
The 22-year-old from Kerala, Joseph Sunny, scored Delhi SC’s first ever home goal to give them the lead against a top-half side like Jamshedpur FC. The right main character moment.
But here’s the thing: how many people in the stands actually knew him before his name came over the loudspeakers?
That’s the real challenge. That is the task of Delhi SC.
Because once that connection clicks, the numbers won’t stay at 6,732 for long.
Delhi did not welcome football back with noise and chaos.
It made something much more honest. It showed up years later, held up through the rain and made sure to remind you that football is not dead in this town. It was just waiting.
– The end
Published on:
21 March 2026 09:35 IST
