FIFA U-17 World Cup: It’s Germans, it’s Iranians…no, it’s Russians

Members of Spain’s U-17 World Cup team at a practice session in Kochi on Thursday. (Source: PTI)

When the “first foreign plane” arrived at start of this month in Goa, it made big news. It was a start of the season. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one carrying the German or Iranian or Costa Rican or Guinea teams, signaling the country’s soccer spring. It brought a few hundred routine Russians, to kick-off the usual ‘tourist’ season. It’s been a slightly underwhelming first feel of this revered game in what is known to be football-mad Goa with only 60 percent ticket sales recorded till midweek and oldies shaking heads frowningly when asked if they’ll head to Fatorda. The local federation and the parent body have tiffed and their differences remain stubbornly unresolved, while the core fan base can’t seem to let go off old affinities with old clubs Salgaocar and Dempo who left the I League. The government in charge of promotions has kept it strictly austere – a few flags along the highway, and just enough – though when did Goa, where football ranked just a tad ahead of gospel alphabetically, need spreading of the good word? There’s a list of litanies over what has led to the almighty Goan sulk including absence of a Goan in the national team, but Indian football just doesn’t feel right without its sunny state on board the country’s biggest football carnival. The first game might still render these fears unfounded, but one reckons only another flight full of not-so-foreigners on a domestic flight from Kochi ahead of the October 13 game, might cure moods up here. That’s when the Brazilians will show up.

‘Maybe He’s Saying 1,2,3,4’

Guinea are the least talked of team in Group C, but they’ve arrived in Goa with soaring confidence of making life miserable for the Germans, Iranians and Costa Ricans. Their star player is the tiniest of strikers — 15-year-old Djibril Sylla who scores them in a bunch, but it was their goalkeepers who held the crowd of entirely policemen at Benaulim’s Trinity Stadium literally spellbound. The goalkeeping coach has a drill for his three boys under the crossbar – Ibrahima Sylla, Abdoulaye Doumbouya and Mohamed Camara, all upwards of 6 feet. Shuffling their feet rhythmically between cones and markers, the custodians trained one by one at shots fired away at them first from front and then from the side. Like a chorus, the routine repeated as each of the three took turns to first dance on their toes and then punch out to simulate goalmouth melees. Earlier the three in their striking yellow gear — stretched and balanced the side plank in unison, like synchronized swimmers out of water. The coach’s instructions were a mix of French and orders screamed gutturally like from a war trench. “Maybe he’s saying 1, 2, 3, 4,” ventured a policeman hypnotized by the whole drill, “or maybe he’s calling him names in different stages of anger.” The goalkeeper in question had fumbled in his shuffling step, and his lame punch would’ve lobbed the ball back to the imaginary striker. “Danger saahaab” the coach was promptly nicknamed by the cops as he reminded

Rongmon has a presence

Right outside the Indra Gandhi Athletic stadium in Guwahati, stands the mascot of the FIFA U-17 world cup: a clouded leopard called Kheleo. A rare and threatened species of wild cat in North East, the leopard mascot is bright and cheerfully coloured, and pretty decent in size too. But it isn’t the best mascot in the area. Barely 100 metres away, right in front of the stadium, stands the massive Rongmon, the one-horned Rhino mascot of the National Games 2007. Clad in a dhoti and Assamese muga shirt, with the traditional gamocha tied around his neck and pepa (horn) tucked in, and holding the Olympic torch. Rongmon was a pretty popular during that tournament. FIFA hasn’t a flesh-and-blood person roaming the town yet, but Rongmon had a human version then. A 20-year old college student Mrinal Choudhury went around the city, stuffed and sweating inside foam, and meeting up with kids. He was there at the opening ceremony then too. Incidentally, it was sketched by two college students. You try Rongmon as landmark with Ola driver but he doesn’t know it. Turns out he has come to Guwahati just six months back, and has one look at it, and says, “Ah, hum usko Ghar bolte hain.” A rhino and a leopard welcome you to the world cup. PS: Wonder what Choudhury is doing these days.

The Other Mumbai

The word ‘Navi’ has been marked on every hoarding placed enroute to the DY Patil Stadium. Through the World Cup, Navi Mumbai hopes to break away from the shadows of the older city, perhaps start a sporting legacy associated with its own autonomous identity.
“The World Cup is happening in Navi Mumbai, not Mumbai,” says an LOC official. “Navi Mumbai hosted the first IPL final, Navi Mumbai hosted the first ISL final. Now Navi Mumbai will host the first World Cup.”

Winning Hearts

When Niger arrived at the Veli College Ground in Fort Kochi in the night, they were amused to see nearly 1,000 fans thronging the chain fence to glimpse them, the cameras and selfies sticks in tow. The coach immediately ordered his teams to greet them back. “We are not Brazil or Spain. So we should try to win as much as fans as possible, and so you should greet them and take selfies with so that they will come to the stands and support us. We should make friends wherever we go,” he explained to them.

The players followed his orders in earnest and began to entertain the crowd. The quintessentially lively crowd became livelier, until somebody told the spectators that they weren’t Brazil, but Niger. They vanished into vast expanses of the eerie darkness. But Niger boys aren’t letting go off any opportunity to greet any random passerby with a warm smile and a shy extension of their right hand.

Mali’s Number Problems

The meeting room designated for Mali at the team hotel was abuzz early afternoon on Wednesday. At one end, a member of the support staff was haggling with local jersey manufacturers – the three goalkeepers’ kits failed FIFA’s initial check earlier in the day as the jersey numbers on the chest exceeded the 50 mm square dimensions by 1.8 mm. Eventually, a day ahead of the opening matches, FIFA would approve without any changes.

In another corner, members of a telecom brand were trying to explain, through a translator, to the five Mali support staff members that only their passports would not be enough to activate a new sim card for their mobile phones, they would also need a passport-size photograph. The Malians didn’t take it too well, one stormed out of the room. Meanwhile the telecom delegation wondered if they should mention the A-word: ‘Aadhar.’

No Catalan Talk, Please

As Spain forward Abel Ruiz lumbered out of the practice session, taking swigs from a bottle of water, an over-inquisitive journalist neatly barged into him and belted out in one breathe: “Abel, what you think of the Catalan issue back home? Are you guys planning anything here?” Abel doesn’t speak English, understands, a little English. But he would have certainly understood the Catalan inference, and hence looked entirely shocked. The irony, here, was that he isn’t even Catalan, but from Valencia. The question betrayed a popular perception that all Spanish players in Barcelona are Catalans. But undaunted, the journalists tried their luck with every Barcelona player-there are five of them in the team-only to return unrequited. Their inquisitiveness was finally stubbed by coach Santiago Denia: “They’re kids, please don’t ask them such questions. You can ask me, and I can tell you we are not thinking at all about such issues. We don’t talk politics in the board room. We talk about football.”