LAWET

Kaustav Ghosh

My country is India. My mother tongue is Bengali. Bengalis are that race who love football very much and at the time of Football World Cup they are mainly divided into two footballing nation- Brazil and Argentina. If you walk down the street anywhere in West Bengal you will find huge flags of this two great footballing nation.

We are so much crazy that if you visit any sweet shop you can find FIFA world cup special sweet.

From Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal to Brasilia or Buenos Aires, the distance is around 15000 km or above. But we are closely connected by the love for football.

From my grand father to me, we are supporting Brazil wherever they play. The photo posted below are the Football fans supporting Brazil during the quarter final match of FIFA U17 World Cup between Brazil and Germany at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, on Oct 22, 2017. It was full house and out of 66,673 audience that around 66000 people were supporting Brazil. I was also there along with my elder brother and my father.

While coaching the Brazil under 17 team in the U17 World cup hosted in India in 2017, the then Coach of Brazil team Carlos Amadeu said-““We haven’t seen something like this (66-thousand strong crowd at the VYBK stadium) in a long time and the atmosphere, the constant cheering from the stands reminded me of Maracana,” Amadeu had expressed after beating Germany in the quarter-final two days ago. “We’re really happy to play the World cup here in India in front of you. The World Cup would not have been the same sans the Selecao”, Amadeu quipped.

He lavished huge praise for the colourful crowd who were present at the iconic VYBK Stadium during the quarter-final and went on to say that they deserve nothing less than a ‘perfect ten’. “The way they celebrated our win, it really gave us a strong feeling of being at home. They were really polite and when we’re trailing to Germany, they didn’t lose the hope. That shows their love for Football and they deserve nothing less than a perfect ten.” This are taken from footballcounter.com. You can check their link-

Kolkata gave us a strong feeling of being at home: Brazil U-17 Coach Carlos

You should also look at this video- how much we love brazil team, the national flag of Brazil was waving higher and higher in the city of Kolkata, ex capital of India:-

My favourite team is Mohun Bagan. We have named Jose Ramires Barreto, a football player from Brazil (who played more than a decade in Mohun Bagan), Jessus, the saviour.

Pele came to Kolkata to play an exhibition match against Mohun Bagan in 1977. I am sharing photos, news link and video of that match.

Here is the documentary video of that 1977 match. You should also look at those videos-

You can also visit this link to know more. Like me you can get all the photos from this link-

1. https://olympics.com/en/featured-news/pele-kolkata-1977-calcutta-mohun-bagan-vs-cosmos-indian-football-eden-gardens
2. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/flavours-of-kolkata/return-of-the-king-pele-returns-to-india-after-38-years/
3. https://sportstar.thehindu.com/football//article64682926.ece

For your kind information Roger Milla, the cameroonian football legend visited Mohun bagan at the 101 years of celebration of the club in 1990.

Maradona and Valderrama visited Mohun bagan club. Oliver Kahn played a farewell match against Mohun bagan while wearing the Jersy of Bayern Munich.

I hope by this photos and videos you can understand our craze for football and brazil. Another think is my favourite team Mohun Bagan wear Green and Maroon Jersy like Brazilian football club Fluminense Fc. Mohun Bagan was founded in 1889 and Fluminense in 1902.

I wish this time Brazil make its trophy count from five to six, but I hope there will be a fantastic football cup.