NP Pradeep
April 28th 1983.
Country: India
Club: Viva Kerala
Naduparambil Pappachen Pradeep. His contribution to the game is as weighty as his name. NP Pradeep better known as Pradeep, is an attacking midfielder who plays for the i-League outfit Viva Kerala. Originally from Kerala, Pradeep started his senior career with the team of State Bank of Travancore (SBT) in 2002 at the age of 17. Before that, Pradeep started off as a striker playing for the state of Kerala at the U-17 and later the U-19 levels. He then turned himself into a midfielder soon after joining SBT. He represented SBT till 2006 during which he played 56 games and scored 8 goals. During his stay at SBT, he managed to win four Kerala league titles for his club.
After leaving SBT in 2006, Pradeep joined Mahindra United. Incidentally, his record of 56 appearances and 8 goals was repeated at his new club till 2010 when the club was disbanded. He experimented with various positions while at Mahindra and sometimes even played as a full-back. At Mahindra United he was benched for a lot of the season 2008-09 and at the end when the coach Derrick Pereira left the club, Pradeep was visibly happy to see him go. Pradeep, on his birthday in 2009 said, “Last season, I was benched for most parts of the season and that didn’t please me one bit. For me, Derrick leaving Mahindra is good.” Despite all this he managed to win two IFA shields with Mahindra in 2006 and 2008. He also contributed to his club reaching the quarter finals of the AFC Cup.
It was his contribution to Mahindra in the AFC Cup that caught Bob Houghton’s attention. This led to him being called up for the National Squad. Initially he started playing as a left-back for India but progressively he came back to his position of a goal-scoring mid fielder. For the national team, Pradeep actually came into the lime-light post the Nehru Cup 2007. He scored the most important goals of the tournament. He scored the opening goal of the Nehru Cup for India and he also scored in the final against Syria making it the only goal of the game and helping India lift the Nehru Cup for the first time. After the cup, Pradeep became a regular in the starting XI for the English coach and has been proving his worth since then.
Later as Mahindra played him at various positions, Pradeep started losing form. Eventually when the club broke up, he remained a free agent for some time until joining Viva Kerala in January 2011 late in the transfer window. Even in Qatar during the AFC Asian Cup, Pradeep’s role in the team was crucial since India hasn’t produced many attacking midfielders of his kind. To his credit, he has also been tipped by various critics to surpass the former Indian captain I.M. Vijayan considering his talent and skills on the pitch.
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