Calcutta, Oct. 15 :    Calcutta, Oct. 15:  'A man of strength, substance and sheer competitiveness - qualities which remain so elusive for present-day footballers in the country. He was the strongest player I ever played with.' This was how Chuni Goswami, a legend in Indian football, described his contemporary and another soccer great, Jarnail Singh, who died of a heart attack in Vancouver (Canada) on Friday. 'I am lucky and India was lucky to have got such a strong man in the team. We used to get inspired by his very presence in the defence,' Goswami reminisced. 'Jarnail was not a skilful player, so to speak. But he made up this deficiency with strength, temperament, keen competitiveness and endurance. While most players tended to start gasping after 60-70 minutes, he was the type who never looked tiring matches after matches,' he added. The 64-year-old widower had gone to visit his son Harshmohan in Vancouver four months back. Inarguably the country's best defender, Jarnail played a key role in India's gold medal winning performance at the Jakarta Asian Games in 1962 and led the national side in the Asian Games in Bangkok four years later. He also donned the national colours in the Rome Olympics in 1960, the last time that India made it to the main stage of the greatest show on earth. He is till date the lone Indian to have led an Asian XI, a distinction he earned in 1966. He was also the second player besides Chuni Goswami to have represented India in its golden age of soccer, which saw the national team winning Asian Games gold and being runners-up in Asian Cup and Merdeka Cup championships. Having learnt his basics in Phagwara in the Punjab, Jarnail's talents surfaced during the all-India university tournament in Bareily in 1957. He moved to Calcutta to play for Rajasthan. Two years later, he joined Mohun Bagan and his decade-long stint with the green-maroon outfit helped it win the IFA League four times and the Durand Cup thrice. Indian Footballer of the Millennium and star defender Sailen Manna said Jarnail Singh 'was technically very sound as was evident in his clean tackles. He was tough but not rough'. Former India international and celebrated coach Amal Dutta said Jarnail had all the qualities which make a top class defender. 'He was the best defender I have seen. He also pioneered power football in the country,' the Tollygunge Agragami coach said. While Union sports minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa mourned the death of 'a great player', for chief national coach Sukhwinder Singh it was the loss of a man 'who was like my guru'. Punjab chief minister Prakash Singh Badal said the legendary footballer would be given a state funeral as and when his body is brought back to his home state. For the past few months, Jarnail was suffering from depression after having lost his wife and son. 'Yes, he was feeling lonely. I've heard about this. But had he come back to Calcutta, he would have found company of a good number of his friends here and his premature end might not have come that way,' Goswami regretted.