2.I.M. Vijayan
Inivalappil Mani Vijayan is a former professional Indian football player and Captain of national football team. Popularly known as Kalo Harin, the valiant player preferred to play at the forward position. In the late nineties and early 2000s, he, along with Baichung Bhutia made the deadliest attacks for Indian national team.
Known for scoring the 8th fastest goal in international football history, I.M.V first started playing football for Kerala police at the age of 17 years. His attractive style of playing football caught eyes of various football club due to which he went on to play for various clubs like Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and others.
In 1994, he joined JCT mills Phagwara and stayed there for at least 3 years where he braced 19 times in his 44 appearances for the club. After his JCT stint, he played for Mohun Bagan, FC Kochin and East Bengal too and in 2002 he again moved to JCT to play for the club for 2 years. He played for Churchill brothers after this but his last professional football club was East Bengal which he left in 2006.
He was one of the best footballers who represented India at international level. Vijayan debuted in 1989 for Indian football team and found the back of the net 29 times in his 66 appearances for the team. He participated in very important tournaments like Nehru cup, pre-olympics, pre-world cup, SAAF cup and more. He also finished as a top scorer in the Afro-Asian games event held in India in 2003.
Vijayan decided to hang his boots from international football after the Afro-Asian Games of 2003. He won the AIFF Player of the year award record three times(1992,1997,2000) and also won SAAF Championship for India three times. He was honoured with the Arjuna award in 2003 which was another feather in his cap. After retirement from football, he tried his luck in acting too and is also nurturing young football players via his football academy.