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Goalmaal in India
The real philosophical question facing the Indian football fan is whether to support Brazil or any other country.
India ranks 118 in a list of 205 member countries of the Fédération Internationale de Football (Fifa) Association. (We’re ahead of 1980 World Cup qualifiers New Zealand and neighbour of Germany and France, Luxembourg, and don’t you ever forget that!) But that doesn’t stop us from going completely goal-maal every World Cup year. So this year too, as Germany hosts the most ravishing version of the Beautiful Game, we are all geared up — shin guards and scarves — to cheer our Team XI of choice.
The real philosophical question facing the Indian football fan is whether to support Brazil or any other country. The presence of Ronaldinho may have tilted the balance further in the favour of an Indo-Brazilian spectator-footballer pact, but Brazil has always been the choice for a large majority of a country that believes the samba and the bhangra sprung from the same rhythm section. Then there is the Europe vs Latin America rivalry — a certain section of the desi cognoscenti dividing the World Cuppers into France etc. and Argentina etc. Also, despite the world’s biggest footballing party being about teams and Nation States, the Indian fan has the micro-level choice of choosing for the team that his hero plays for. So even if France is not your World Cup of tea, you may holler for Les Bleu simply because you think Thierry Henry or Zizou is God.
When the final whistle is blown on July 9 in Berlin, the world will be toasting a victorious team. Indians too will also join in the festivities, although there is likely to be a pall of gloom that settles as we return to our mundane lives that is not compartmentalised into furious packets of 90-odd minutes of joy and despair. Till then, may the best spectators’ team win.
