“I hope people don’t hate me because I didn’t go to Europe.”

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu is in Oslo getting in some pre pre-season training, just eight days after his SAFF Championship final heroics, and he’s doing it by training with his former team Stabaek — where he still carries plenty of goodwill. So much so, in fact, that they tried to sign him up in February this year as their starting keeper. And it’s while clearing the air about the move that almost happened (again), that he, rather curiously, asks not to hate him.

“The plan was to do it, but it just didn’t happen logistically,” he says. “Obviously, I would have loved to come back here and spend at least one or two seasons.” He says the interest from the club “was sudden,” and had come while talks had been progressing well with BFC in January.

What was the logistical issue then, you ask? “The season over here works out very differently from how it is everywhere else,” explains Gurpreet. “Over here the pre-season starts mid-Jan and it goes till mid-March and then the league starts from end of March till December first week.”

“During that time, I was with BFC, and we were winning game-after-game-after-game, we were very close to going to the playoffs and I thought ‘this is something I can do, but maybe after the ISL finishes…’ because I have to respect where I was.” With BFC firmly in the hunt for the ISL cup, Gurpreet wasn’t about to abandon them midway. So, with Stabaek asking for a Feb start, he had to so no. “I’m sure [BFC] would have loved a player from their team to go to Europe.”

Why would anyone hate him for it, though? Partly his desire to state that stems from a criticism that’s been sweeping around the Indian football ecosystem these days, that players are getting paid too much, and there’s no incentive for them to move outside, challenge themselves.

“The truth behind it… I’ve played in Europe. I know how it works… it’s not very easy to just come here,” he says. Gurpreet himself spent three years at Stabaek, but mostly as a second-choice keeper at the time. More recently his national side teammate Sandesh Jhingan attempted the challenge — but (mainly due to injury) returned without playing a game for Croatian first division side HNK Sibenik.

“It’s not like everyone is getting an offer from Europe to come over here,” he says. “Even when you come here, you need to prove yourself [before] you get a contract. We are not at a stage where European football is looking at us and are like… ‘we want that player.’ We have a long way to go.”

“If a young player gets the opportunity to go outside, I’m sure they consider it,” he says. “No one sits here and not consider it. But it’s just that the players that we are talking about it… it might be too late for them, and they understand it. If you’re 15-16-17, max till 19-20 you can do it, you can try it. But after 20, it’s just difficult. 20 sounds very young but in footballing terms for an outfield player, it is old, trust me.”

“It’s very easy to put an opinion on Twitter and Instagram and be like you should have gone to Europe, people are getting paid too much, they should go [outside]… Right now, at least, it doesn’t work like that.”

How it does work now is Indian footballers putting in the hard yards to improve themselves. Which is why he’s back in training “killing myself” even though he was “very exhausted after the ISL final” and had the longest season he can remember behind him (three domestic finals and two more with the national team).

And so, for now, Gurpreet is happy to focus on himself, and the growth of Indian football (“the sky is the limit for us”) and that means more of the same: eat fit, sleep well, train hard. Whether in Oslo or Bengaluru, that’s what he will do.