A city is not only a place where people live, it is also a site for myths, stories and associations. Thus, the city of Calcutta has become associated, inextricably, with football. Soccer is not a game native to India. It came with British rule and therefore arrived in Calcutta earlier than it did in other parts of India. Yet, it came after cricket since the oldest cricket club of the city, the Calcutta Cricket Club, dates to 1792. But cricket is not Calcutta?s game of choice. That position is enjoyed by football. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Calcutta?s football clubs began to challenge their white counterparts at a time when white dominance of cricket in Calcutta was complete. Somewhere in historical memory, football has become imbricated with nationalism. And the year that every Bengali football fan loves to recall is 1911, when Mohun Bagan defeated East York to lift the IFA Shield. This series of associations ? Calcutta with football, and football in Calcutta with nationalism ? is an important one to understand the frenzy that grips the city every time a football World Cup takes place. The associations need to be borne in mind to comprehend Calcutta?s choices during the World Cup.

It is obvious, and has been so since the World Cup came alive on the television screen for Calcutta football lovers, that the city supports Brazil. If, for some reason, the first favourite is out of the race, Calcutta football fans shift their support to some other Latin American team. In 1986, loyalties shifted to Argentina after Brazil lost to France in the quarter-finals. There are two reasons for this. One is the preference for the kind of football that Brazil and other Latin American countries play. Their style of football puts on show higher levels of dribbling and passing and even of shooting. The skills displayed by Pel?, Garrincha and Maradona ? to name the top three ? have never been matched in European football. European football is based more on discipline and position play than on individual brilliance. This is one reason why Latin American teams, despite their brilliance, often appear to be fragile and somewhat vulnerable in defence. The good European teams always seem solid but there is an absence of artistry in their soccer. It is the skill and the artistry that appeal to the football lovers of Calcutta. The other reason is emotional. In Brazil and in other Latin American countries, football has become an expression of nationalism. Deprived in many areas of life, on the football pitch they can prove their superiority over their quondam colonial masters. In Latin America alone, George Orwell?s memorable definition of sports as war minus the shooting becomes a reality with soccer replacing sports. Football is an element of national pride. Calcutta can empathize with this because at one time here too football had become part of nationalism. As the standard of football played in Calcutta has slipped, Calcutta?s love for football survives vicariously. Supporters of rival clubs like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are suddenly united, albeit for only one month, in their loyalty towards Brazil.

The football World Cup is thus a great leveller in Calcutta. It not only brings together fans of rival clubs but its following also cuts across all social barriers. For the next month, habitu?s of watering holes in five star hotels and social clubs, and the less affluent in the far-flung suburbs of Calcutta ? everyone will be glued in the evening to their television sets and will be supporting their favourites till the final whistle is blown. Given Calcutta?s history and its association with soccer, it can hardly be otherwise. Legend has it that during a match in which Mohun Bagan was playing, a staid professor of English in Presidency College stood up on the gallery clad in his immaculate white dhoti and kurta and declaimed in Johnsonese, ?Behold, behold the twinkling quintet tantalizes the custodian with the rotundity of leather.? For the next thirty days, lure of the rotundity of leather (preferably between Brazilian boots) will excel in Calcutta.