Opinion The fun of simply being a fan

A little more than fourteen years have passed since the day Baggio’s demeanour begged for forgiveness after his gaffe led to Brazil winning the 1994 World Cup. Like me,millions around the world pardoned the striker,and most had remote or absolutely no connection with his team or the foot-shaped European country.

But what makes us identify with a sport that has little or no grounding in our own country? The answer lies in the fact that football isn’t burdened and restricted to complicated rules and regulations like many other sports,neither does it cost a substantial amount of money to play the game. With 202 countries registered with the governing body FIFA,football has the uncanny knack of transcending all borders. For some,watching sport has always been a recreation,something to do while having plenty of time to kill. For others,scores and statistics possess their very existence. But football has never been so banal. It is neither a game obsessed with numbers nor a leisurely pastime; its primitive instincts make it a lot more universal. As John Lanchester,a British journalist,wrote: “Golf writing is about playing

golf; cricket writing is about cricket and baseball writing about baseball;

but most football writing is about being a fan.”

Football fans in our country are also resigned to the fact that the Indian national anthem is not bound to play in a World Cup match anytime in the near future(although India did qualify for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil,but pulled out of the tournament). While only 32 countries are represented at each World Cup,and with our country of birth never within the realms of qualifying,adopting one of the participating states as our own is the next best choice. In the quest for the elusive fan status,we beg,borrow and steal from the great football nations.

The Brazilians — with their much hyped liquid style of football — are by far the most popular side in the world,and it is no different in India. Major portions of West Bengal and Kerala — our footballing powerhouses — watch in a trance-like state,pledging their unconditional support. Goa swears by its former colonisers,Portugal,while the metropolitans of Mumbai and Delhi lend their support to west European countries such as England and Spain,whose club football is a major attraction on weekends. The collective “we” is used when these teams are discussed in public.

Rinus Michels,also known as “the General,” coach of the Dutch team that narrowly lost to Germany in the 1974 final,famously said,“Football is war.” Two US defence strategists even suggested in the Armed Forces Journal in 2003 that soccer,with its “dispersed and decentralised leadership and autonomous units capable of individual acts”,was the paradigm for twenty-first century war.

On the night of 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France,my hometown of Mumbai lay in a semi war-zone. The Shiv Sena had brought the city to a standstill by burning taxis and buses,after one of their statues was allegedly dishonoured,which led to widespread riots. The silence and the tension was shattered,when a large group of football fans stormed Shivaji Park — the home of the statue and the cradle of cricket — a little after midnight. “Forza Azzurri,” they screamed and chanted in unison. Italy had attained salvation by winning the World Cup in penalty shoot-outs. And somewhere in Mumbai,another nine-year old began worshipping a country he had never visited.

aditya.iyer@expressindia.com