Football's knighthood

Arindam Basu

Football fever had taken a new turn in the city. Suddenly cricket was borrowing stars from a football team to add to the sheen of its celebrations. As Joffre, Borja and Josemi waved at the fans from the VIP box of Eden Gardens suddenly it felt like a gotrantar for the game hitherto treated as the pulp of the mango people. ISL had given Indian football its bragging rights.

Rohit Sharma hit 264 to keep cricket's intoxication untainted, but football basked in its new found status 24 years after it had been shifted off to the the eastern fringes of the city.

Suddenly the guest list in a football match had the most sought after faces from the city and outside. Sometimes its the tinsel town from Tollywood that descended upon the stadium and sometimes the VIP gallery looked like an extended board room for the corporate hotshots.

But the game between Chennaiyan FC and Atletico de Kolkata saw something extra special. Abhishek Bachchan has recently emerged as one of the most seen sporting faces of Bollywood (albeit may be due to a laid back shooting calender) slapping his thigh for a Thigh5 to sporting a lungi while rooting for the visitors from down South. But the presence of Mr Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone set the pulse of the 50,000 odd people racing.

As the ripe hues of the winter sun caressed the Western galleries of the Salt Lake Stadium layers of people peeled off the EM Bye Pass and rolled into the giant colloseum. Football was the centrepiece of course, but what added to the spice of the evening of lurking fog was a pride for the game that just was just knighted.     

ATK and a conspiracy theory

Arindam Basu

There is a certain aura to conspiracy theories. Utterly disbelievable and yet it leaves a lingering sense of anticipation. There is absolutely no credo to these tell-tales and yet they leave a few lurking questions in our minds of the ‘What if’ variety. History is replete with such theories: Was Will Shakespeare actually Queen Elizabeth? Did Charlotte Bronte kill her sisters? And more recently the absolutely laughable and yet mind boggling theory that no one that pretty could actually have been that poor and that good at writing.

Yes, J K Rowling! The theory goes that she is obviously an actress hired by a panel of shadowy ghost writers. Or at least that’s what Norwegian film-maker Nina Grunfeld believes. For in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten Grunfeld advocated the theory that the Potter series was in fact written by a full-size team of people, all of whom were perfectly happy to receive no acclaim for the worldwide phenomenon. Rowling is an actress they hired to be the face of the series, and her story was cleverly crafted to give hope to impoverished single mothers everywhere.

While chewing on that thought, you could cast some attention to another such theory gaining muscle everyday albeit in the realm of sports. The hilarity of the theory is set against a growing number of stats and steely-jawed convictions among certain organisers in the corridors of power. Indian Super League is perhaps the best thing that happened to football in India after Nagendra Prasad Sarbadhikary took it upon himself to spread the game from the British soldiers in 1880s. Well in between there were a few Herculean achievements like the IFA Shield win and Asian Games success in 1950. Then the game went bust.

As gratifying as it is, ISL has got the rumour mills on the move. And being spun with ferocious ease is the theory that some evil machinations are at play to stop the Ashwamedha of Atletico de Kolkata. What has really got the tongues wagging is the stat that ATK earned a whopping 5 yellow cards and a red in the last match against Chennaiyin itself. While the veracity of the yellows could be contested, there is no doubt that the red carding of Joffre was unwarranted and callous. TV replays showed Gourmangi Singh hacking down Joffre and the referee flashing the red on the victim to utter disbelief of even the Chennaiyin players. Such embarrassing was the situation that Mikael Silvestre was seen running up to Joffre and offering a few words of camaraderie.   

Now let us look at a few other facts. AIFF has reduced the ban on Antonio Lopez Habas from four matches to two as upon investigation they found no evidence to the charges levelled against him of being physical. So why the hurry to ban him in the first place? Fikru started the season in sparkling form striking up a perfect combination with Luis Garcia. What we see next is a ban on him too. This has not only cost ATK four points but also cost the Ethiopian continuity. After the first three games ATK has never been allowed to field their first eleven and for the last two games the brain behind the team was disbarred from the sidelines. The team has picked up cards more frequently than the bridge players. While most of them could well be contested, their attitude towards the game has been dissected and the players’ integrity towards discipline questioned. Branded as the bad boys they have been sent to the gallows repeatedly. 

And why just to keep them down and out. Well…well…well…that’s some theory!

It’s still a few matches before the curtains are drawn on the first ISL. Only when the hurly- burly is done will any of us be able to say whether this conspiracy theory to stop ATK sticks on or not. For now the galleries of the colossal Salt Lake Stadium are flush with waves of whispers of a wicked plot against their home team.

Well the Gods of the leather orb must be watching!

ATK fails to beat the red within

Arindam Basu

Self destruction is usually defined as “the voluntary destruction of something by itself.” In human terms we are talking about counter-productive and ultimately self-destructive behaviour patterns which can cause irreparable damage, either deliberately or inadvertently. It’s a fatal umbrella for a variety of self-damaging tendencies from doing things that always seem to backfire, to habitual self-harm, to suicidal recklessness. The match between Atletico de Kolkata and Chennaiyin FC was a veritable display of all three in various phases.

And let me add with a little caution, if ATK don’t change, they will pay a price too dear sooner than later.

ATK began like a clever moocher soaking in all the verve of the home team before bursting out in counterattacks. It was from one of the counter when Luis Garcia, please all take a bow, sent an adventurous ball into the penalty box that Md Rafi latched on to before being brought down by Chennaiyin FC goalie Shilton Paul. Garcia walks up and scores from the spot. 1-0 for ATK. Chennaiyin FC down to 10 men. Game set and match all would say.

Garcia’s penetration, Borja’s prodigal run, Jofre’s intelligence in the final third was slowly making life difficult for Chennai. Garcia tested Bracigliano with a sharpshooter. Then Borja sent a teasing aerial ball from the Beckham zone that had the lanky goalie backtrack gingerly only in time to keep the trajectory out. Baljit made a mess of a volley from close.   

It was time to sit back. Slow down. Enjoy. And feed on time like a hungry leech. But then referee walks into the scene and acts as the proverbial biblical serpent inducing into Jofre the viral Narcissist syndrome. He collects the first yellow of the match for an unnecessary walk over on Elano. The germs of destruction had set in.

After the change over, Jofre carried on where he left. Only this time he was brought down by Gourmangi Singh and ATK should have got a penalty and Gourmangi Singh a yellow. Instead the ref thought Borja did enough play acting for one evening. A second yellow for simulation and suddenly Chennai got a lifeline. ATK paid the price for their habitual self-harm.

Thereafter the game had slowed down, picked pace and went along the sidewalk as tired legs and frayed nerves took over. Balwant and Jeje were injected into the match to yield result, Sanju and Masih brought in to maintain status quo. Balwant nearly scored thought unwittingly and Mendy put plug on a bullet that Sanju triggered.  

And after a series of such anti-climax as the match had slipped into injury time, Kingshuk does the unthinkable. A suicidal moment of recklessness saw Chennai’s Valencia brought down and Elano Blumer doesn’t need a second invite to score from the spot. ATK threw away the three points they had in their coffer and much like a vagrant moocher returned with just one point, five yellow cards and one red.

Still undefeated. Still on top. But only just. With time running out of the hourglass!       

Rise of the Belgian Bomber

Arindam Basu

Manchester United has been express and impersonal in the eviction of the hamsters, nannies and dorks that emphasised the David Moyes era. Only one remains. He scurried around like a puddle last season and at best barked mildly in between fitness issues. When Louis Van Gaal came, he was quick to hand out to the short rope to him.

But three months into the season he seems to have reinvented himself. Welcome to the rebirth of Marouane Fellaini. A slack defence and lack of an effective blocker in the midfield may have added to his advantage, but the bushy haired Belgian has had to show that he was willing to play in the hole in front of the defence and work relentlessly both in attack and defence.

The journey from Standard Liege to the red part of Manchester via Carrington Road is something of a fairy tale. For he may not be the quickest on the field or may not have the biggest physical advantage, but he compensated that with an arrogant run, impeccable technique and perfect sense of the game. These qualities made him the midfield-marshal with Everton and made Moyes believe he would be a success in the Theatre of Dreams. But then suddenly everything began to fall apart.

The team was under performing. Moyes was under fire. And he was the only player the coach had signed. As a result Fellaini had the albatross hung around his neck. Always under the lens, always talked about, always marked out, he suddenly found out he was a goldfish in a glass bowl. To add to his misery he played at four different positions in the team last season asked to do things that Moyes wished as his guy. He crumbled.

But after watching him in the last two games I’m more than convinced he is back. His game is first class, the swagger is back, the nonchalance apparent and he now wore the Red Devils jersey not as an outsider but one who has a permanent locker in the dressing room. He left a big influence in the Manchester derby and sooner than later the puddle hair will be a fad at the home ground. A brilliant player, worth all the money and all the wait.