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What's the story?
India's star U-21 Abneet Bharti has been named in the 'Best Current U21 Asian XI' by Italian football website Calciomercato. Several young and blooming talents across Asia have been named in the XI and Nepal-born Abneet Bharti gets a place in the team as well.
In case you didn't know...
Abneet Bharti is the only Indian footballer to be playing for a European Club at the moment. He is currently plying his trade in Portuguese third division (Campeonato de Portugal) side SU Sintrense as a central defender.
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Bharti started his youth career with Singapore Premier League side Geylang International FC. He also played for Balestier Khalsa in the Singapore Youth League. The 19-year-old made history when he was offered a contract by Spanish Side Real Valladolid in 2014 as a youth player. He made it to the first team for Valladolid in 2016, taking the Indian football community by storm.
The Heart of the matter
Calciomercato, being Italy's first professionally run football website, publishes transfer updates, match reports and several news reports predominantly regarding Italian football. It also covers various national teams and big clubs around the world.
The website publishes Best XIs of various groups on an annual basis and India U-21 Abneet Bharti makes an appearance in the 'Best Current U21 Asian XI' this year. The team includes other top emerging footballers from Asia. The likes of Mohammed Sharifi, who made an appearance in the AFC U-16 Championship held in Goa, has also been included in this list.
The team list as published on the website is as follows :
What's next?
With the Asian Games 2018, just a few months away it would be interesting to see if India coach Stephen Constantine picks him in the U-23 squad for the games in Jakarta.
Author's Take
The inclusion of Abneet Bharti in the Asian youth elite surely comes off as a delight to Indian football fans. It would encourage several young players in India to ply their trade in Europe.
