When Tahsin Mohammad Jamshid was four years old, he would sit by the dug-out at local stadiums in Doha and watch his father play football on Fridays.

That was where it started.

Jamshid Thachankandy, from Calicut, had immigrated to Doha in 1996 with his wife Shyma, who is from Valapattanam, leaving behind a timber business and a football career cut short by injury. Fridays in Qatar are holidays. Jamshid spent his at local stadiums with friends and co-workers, and his younger son came along. “He used to sit near the dug-out area,” Jamshid remembers. “Later he would ask me and my friends to dribble with him, to make him learn football. That was his first step.”

In 1992, Jamshid had been chosen for the India youth football camp. He did not go. Calicut University needed him for the Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee Shield, he had a degree to finish, a life to build. He made his choice. He played alongside Jo Paul Ancheri, Kerala’s finest of that era, but the national call-up was the one that got away.

More than thirty years later, Jamshid’s 19-year-old son is in the 26-man Qatar squad for the FIFA World Cup. It is the first time a player of Indian origin has been at the tournament since Vikash Dhorasoo played for France in 2006.

“When we won the Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee Shield, it was like winning a World Cup for each one of us,” Jamshid says from Doha. “Now to see my son Tahsin play in the FIFA World Cup for Qatar feels like achieving my dream.”

He pauses. “It’s a special moment for each one of us.”

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From the dug-out to the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qasim Sports Academy. From there to the sub-junior team of Al-Duhail SC in 2017. Then the Aspire Academy, Qatar’s elite football development programme, where most of the national team’s current players were shaped. The club bus would pick Tahsin up in the morning and drop him back in the evening. “All he talked about was football,” his father says. “Apart from a forward, he also played as a left winger as well as right winger.” The coaches at Sheikh Faisal had spotted something early — two Algerian instructors who spent hours on his attacking runs, his angles, his movement off the ball.

He made his U17 debut for Qatar in 2023 and U19 debut the following year. In 2024, Tahsin made his professional senior debut for Al-Duhail SC in the Qatar Stars League, coming on for former Premier League midfielder Ibrahima Diallo. Two months later, he was called into the Qatar senior squad.

In September 2024, at 17 years, 11 months, and 21 days, Tahsin started for Qatar against Afghanistan in a World Cup qualifier in Saudi Arabia — the same campaign in which Qatar also faced India. The match ended 0-0. Jamshid was in the stands.

“We went to watch him play and cheered for him and the Qatar team,” he says. That is all he says about it.

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Since then, Tahsin has featured in friendlies against Zimbabwe and Ireland, and played for the Qatar U23 team. He was born in Doha, grew up in its stadiums, trained in its academies. He also holds an Indian passport — his father’s country, a place he has never lived. Next year, as per law, he will need to choose.

“Possibly, he will be opting for a Qatar passport then,” Jamshid says.

Tahsin grew up watching the 2022 World Cup from those same stadiums — a huge Cristiano Ronaldo fan, he followed every Portugal match. He also cheered for Qatar in the group stage, before they went out.

This time, Tahsin will be on the pitch.

Qatar open against Switzerland on June 13 in San Francisco, then face Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina to complete their group. They qualified last October with a 2-1 win over UAE and are coached by Julen Lopetegui.

“We have been getting a lot of messages and calls from Kerala,” Jamshid says. “People are telling us they will pray for Tahsin.”

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Jamshid watches from Doha now. His son dribbles from wide areas, carries the ball at defenders, spent afternoons at Al-Duhail with Marco Verratti and Philippe Coutinho — and watched every Ronaldo match he could during that last World Cup, from the same stands where his father once played on Fridays.

On June 13, in San Francisco, Tahsin Mohammad Jamshid will play in a FIFA World Cup.

His father will be watching.