The untimely rain in April had officially cancelled practice at Mohali’s Minerva Academy, but football here does not acknowledge the weather. This is the same academy whose U-15 team demolished the Liverpool youth team 6-0 during the Round of 16 at the Mediterranean International Cup (MIC) 2026 earlier this year.
Tiny patches of concrete along the hallways, barely the size of a bedroom, became makeshift arenas. Five boys were engaged in a frantic, close-quarters game of rondo, their feet moving with a precision that defies the slick surface. Out in the open, others were standing in the rain, juggling, eyes fixed on the ball as if it were the only dry thing left in Punjab.
Their feat against Liverpool shocked the world and the Indian audience, but to the players it was just another day at the office.
There is a famous quote by Liverpool ex-manager Bill Shankly: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
Minerva Academy’s founder and coach, Ranjit Bajaj, quoted these lines when asked what football means to him and to the players there.
"People who haven't lived it don't get it,” he said. “There is no other sport where a fan will tattoo a name on their body or where a father hands down the club to his son like it’s in their DNA. At Minerva, we don’t just play. We breathe this."
Play against the best
Minerva Academy is a "factory", really. Located on a roughly 10-acre stretch of land in Punjab’s Mohali, the campus is a self-contained ecosystem designed to produce one thing: a generation of Indian footballers capable of looking at the world and not blinking.
If you have watched the now-viral dressing room talk of coach Bajaj during the match against Liverpool, you already have a glimpse of the mentality monsters that this ‘factory’ is churning out.
"We didn't think about losing," Chetan Tiwari, a diminutive midfielder who played with the composure of a veteran against Liverpool, told The Telegraph Online.
"Ranjit Sir told us they were just people. We scored the first goal, and then we just didn't stop. By halftime, the game was over. We weren't just winning a match; we were celebrating the fact that we belonged there.
“We just need to dominate this game. Just dominate. We are playing for our country.”
He is the embodiment of the Minerva "hunger". An Arsenal fan who models his game after Neymar’s flair and simplicity, Chetan doesn’t play for fame. He plays for a debt.
Chetan speaks of his older brother, a talented footballer who realised the family could only afford to gamble on one career. His brother stepped aside, taking up work to ensure Chetan could stay in the "factory."
"Everything I do is for him and for the country. When I am on the pitch, I am not just a player. I am the hope of my family,” Chetan said. "When people ask what football is, I tell them it’s everything. After this, I can't think about anything else. It is my life."
On the Mohali campus, that pressure is treated as fuel. The boys don't have "participation certificates". Bajaj has banned the concept. "Participation certificates can go to hell," he said. "In the real world, nobody remembers who showed up. They remember who won."
It is a philosophy Bajaj has hammered into the foundation of the club. It is the refusal to be "soft", a trait he believes has plagued Indian sports for decades.
Pick any player from that squad and ask them if they felt even a little bit scared going up against giants like Liverpool, and they won’t even take a second to tell you, “not one bit. "
Bajaj’s formula is simple; keep sending these boys to play against international teams, better teams in international tournaments. “When you keep doing it, your body comes and says, there's nothing in this; I won't die. Then you start having no fear. That's how fear works in everything,” Bajaj said.
Crowdfunded way to glory
Minerva are often the David fighting the Goliath in the accounting office. Despite the 20 stars on their crest, each representing a national title the team has won, the path to international glory has been paved with financial desperation.
The trip to the MIC Cup, like several previous international excursions, had to be crowdfunded. Bajaj has had to repeatedly appeal to people online to donate money.
“But here, before going, we were able to raise Rs 27 lakh; then I made another appeal and then it went to 42 lakh. But the real jump which happened within a week was from Rs 42 lakh to 1 crore after beating Liverpool,” Bajaj said.
"If I shut the scholarship programme down and kept only the paid boys, I could have a very comfortable life," Bajaj said, gesturing to the rain-soaked fields where many of the scholarship players were still practising.
"I’d be set for the rest of my life. But there’s no point. How do you get a whole nation to hope if you only pick the kids who can afford the boots?"
The struggle for resources only feeds the mentality. The boys know that their presence in Spain or Sweden is the result of a collective effort by strangers back home. It adds a layer of responsibility.
“All these kids are not from well-to-do families,” Bajaj said. “They don't just have hopes of their own. Some people have the hopes of a village on that kid.”
Mission 2034 World Cup
Minerva Academy and Bajaj’s real goal is taking India to the 2034 Fifa World Cup. He has been preparing for it since 2018 when he started the academy.
Bajaj’s path from being the son of high-ranking retired bureaucrats – his mother, Rupan Deol Bajaj, is a legendary figure in the IAS – to a crusader for Indian football was not a straight line.
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, he was labelled a "spoilt brat" in an Indian Express report and was facing a string of criminal cases ranging from assault to more serious charges.
He traded the aimless friction of his youth for a focused war against the status quo. He was always into football; he used that to turn his life around. Now, at Minerva, he has only one goal: the 2034 World Cup.
The ‘World Cup’ batch, as they are named, have been recruited to fulfil his dream.
“I just need support,” Bajaj said. “I guarantee you, I'll make India qualify or I'll die trying.
“I realised in 2020 that I've got 20 national titles, and I've brought joy from every single title to my parents, to my fans, to the kids' parents and kids' families and to a very few coaches and staff.
Every time my international scores in an India match, I bring happiness to 1.5 billion people,” he added. “And then if I can do this at the World Cup, I will actually make the dreams of 1.5 billion people come true. That is why my life is devoted to that.”