সব খেলার সেরা বাঙালির তুমি ফুটবল। Football, You Are the Greatest of All Games for Bengalis.

সব খেলার সেরা বাঙালির তুমি ফুটবল। Football, You Are the Greatest of All Games for Bengalis.

Very, Very Long Post Alert. I hope it will make you smile when you finish reading. 😊

1986. I do not remember watching that World Cup. I was very small. I cannot pretend that I sat before the television and understood what Diego Maradona was doing in Mexico. I do not remember the Hand of God happening in real time. I do not remember that astonishing second goal against England, when one small man seemed to run through an entire country. I do not remember Burruchaga racing towards the German goal in the final, or Maradona finding him with that pass.

Yet, strangely, this is where my football journey begins.

Memories are not always created by witnessing an event. At times, they are inherited later through photographs, repeated television footage, magazine articles, conversations and the excitement in other people’s voices. Maradona’s 1986 became one such inherited memory for me. By the time I began understanding football, those images had already entered my mind so deeply that they seemed to belong to my own childhood.

Maradona did not feel like a distant footballer from Argentina. He felt like a character from an epic. He was heroic and flawed, mischievous and wounded, divine with the ball and painfully human without it. He carried rebellion in his body. He could make a stadium believe that the laws of physics were only suggestions.

Perhaps that is why Argentina became my country during the World Cup.

I was never a Brazil supporter. I admired their football, of course. One would have to be blind to deny their beauty.

Long before Maradona lifted the World Cup, Argentina had already played a part in Kolkata’s football history. During the 1984 Nehru Cup, India faced Argentina at Eden Gardens. India lost only 1–0, with Ricardo Gareca scoring the decisive goal. I was too young to remember that match either, but the thought itself remains extraordinary: India and Argentina, playing at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, before Maradona’s 1986 turned Argentina into an emotion for so many of us.

My first clear World Cup memories arrived in 1990.

Italia 1990 had Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann, Rudi Völler and Andreas Brehme. It had Salvatore Schillaci, whose enormous eyes appeared to grow wider after every goal. It had Sergio Goycochea saving penalties and carrying Argentina through nights that seemed to be held together by nerves alone. It had Claudio Caniggia flying through defences with that long blond hair. It had Burruchaga, Maradona and a battered Argentina somehow reaching another final. It also had Roger Milla dancing near the corner flag and René Higuita behaving as though the penalty area was merely a polite suggestion. Higuita was unforgettable because he refused to accept that a goalkeeper had to remain a goalkeeper. He wandered, dribbled, took risks and converted goalkeeping into street theatre. Long before social media turned every eccentric moment into a clip, Higuita was already creating football designed to become folklore.

Germany won. Argentina lost. Brehme scored from the penalty spot. I was hurt, although I was still too young to understand why the defeat of a country thousands of kilometres away affected me so deeply.

The way I watched football then was completely different from the way we watch it today. We had one television at home, and it stayed in Dadu’s room. During the World Cup, that television had to be brought out every night so that I could watch. The next morning, it had to be carried back into his room. It was a painful affair. Televisions were not slim screens hanging politely on walls. They were heavy creatures with backs, weight and personality. Moving one required planning, strength and frequent instructions from people who were not actually lifting anything. Every World Cup night, the operation began again. Bring the television out. Find the correct place. Connect everything. Check the picture. Adjust the volume. Then, after the match, reverse the entire process and return it to Dadu’s room.

Today, when I can watch football on a television, computer or phone, I wonder how I did it every night. Yet I am happy I did. Those minor difficulties made the occasion feel important. Watching the World Cup was not a casual activity. The household had to physically rearrange itself for football. And then there was the antenna. Someone would remain near the television while someone else went to the roof. A conversation would begin across floors.

“How is it now?” “Not clear. Turn it a little.” “Which side?” “The other side.” “Now?” “Stop! Don’t move!”

For a few precious seconds, the picture would become clear. Then a gust of wind or some unexplained cosmic conspiracy would cover the players in grains and shadows again. Sometimes the football disappeared into static at the precise moment someone took a shot. Sometimes a player seemed to have two heads. Sometimes the ball became invisible, and we had to understand what had happened from the commentator’s voice and the movement of the crowd. Yes, rather similar to what we all faced with digital streaming too. There was no pause. No rewind. No instant clip appearing on social media. If the electricity failed, a portion of the match simply vanished from your life.

That television belonged in Dadu’s room, and Mohun Bagan belonged to Dadu. :) My grandfather, Dr. Atanu Bihari Goswami, was a Life Member of Mohun Bagan. I did not choose Mohun Bagan after carefully comparing clubs, statistics, trophies or playing styles. Mohun Bagan came to me through my genes. I guess I inherited green and maroon.

Dadu passed away in 2020. His Mohun Bagan Life Membership card remains preserved with me. It is not merely an old card carrying a name and membership number. It is a small surviving piece of him. It connects a grandfather, a grandchild, a football club and a city across time. Perhaps this is why Mohun Bagan has never felt like an ordinary club to me. It existed before I understood football. It existed in Dadu’s room, in that television I carried out every night, in family conversations and in a history much older than any of us.

And at the centre of that history stands 1911.

On 29 July 1911, Mohun Bagan defeated the East Yorkshire Regiment 2–1 in the IFA Shield final. The British team took the lead. Captain Shibdas Bhaduri equalised. Abhilash Ghosh scored the winner. An Indian team defeated a British regimental side and became the first Indian club to win the IFA Shield. It was a football match, but it did not remain merely a football match. India was under colonial rule. The British had brought the modern organised game to the country, and an Indian team had now defeated them in one of their own major tournaments. Most of the Mohun Bagan players played barefoot against opponents wearing boots. The victory became a symbol of pride and resistance. It told people that the rulers were not invincible. The Immortal Eleven did not simply bring home a trophy. They changed the imagination of Indian sport. That story travelled through generations. Dadu inherited it. My generation inherited it. Future generations will inherit it too. This is why Mohun Bagan Day is not simply the anniversary of a sporting result. It is an annual return to a moment when football carried the weight of a nation’s dignity.

Then came the 1994 World Cup.

Romário and Bebeto. Dunga. Hristo Stoichkov. Gheorghe Hagi creating magic for Romania. Carlos Valderrama and that magnificent hair. Then there was Roberto Baggio. One of the most graceful footballers I had ever seen stood over the final penalty and sent the ball above the crossbar. Brazil became world champions. There are sporting moments in which defeat isolates a person completely. Thousands of people may be inside the stadium, millions may be watching across the world, yet the defeated player suddenly appears entirely alone. Baggio standing there after the miss remains one of those images.

Maradona returned in 1994 too. He scored against Greece and ran towards the camera, his eyes blazing, as though he wanted to break through the television screen. Then he was removed from the tournament after failing a drug test. Heroes do not always receive endings worthy of the stories we have built around them.

By 1998, the antenna years were gradually giving way to cable television. The picture became steadier. More international football entered our homes. Players who had once appeared only during the World Cup could now be seen more regularly. France 1998 gave us Zidane scoring twice in the final. It gave us Ronaldo Nazário, Davor Šuker, Lilian Thuram, Michael Owen and Roberto Carlos. It gave us Dennis Bergkamp controlling a long pass against Argentina with a touch so perfect that the ball seemed to have privately agreed to obey him. And Argentina had Gabriel Batistuta, Javier Zanetti, Juan Sebastián Verón, Diego Simeone, Ariel Ortega and Roberto Ayala. Batistuta remains special. The hair, the celebration, the power and the sheer violence with which he struck the football. He looked capable of punishing the goalpost for standing in his way. Zanetti represented something else. He was calm, disciplined, dependable and dignified. In a sport full of theatre, Zanetti represented character. Ortega carried imagination and volatility. Verón possessed vision. Simeone brought cunning and combativeness. Argentina never arrived as a group of emotionally neutral professionals. They always arrived carrying the ingredients of a film. That may be another reason I loved them.

The 2002 World Cup brought Ronaldo’s redemption. Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Cafu completed that extraordinary Brazilian side. Oliver Kahn guarded Germany’s goal like a man defending a fortress. Miroslav Klose began a World Cup story that would stretch across tournaments. Turkey surprised everyone. Senegal defeated France. Hasan Şaş, El Hadji Diouf and Ahn Jung hwan became names suddenly familiar in homes across the world. Argentina arrived with Batistuta, Crespo, Ortega, Verón, Simeone, Ayala and Pablo Aimar. So much ability. So much expectation. Then came the early exit. A magnificent list of names is not the same thing as a functioning team. Brazil defeated Germany in the final, with Ronaldo scoring twice. Kahn had been extraordinary throughout the tournament, but one mistake in the final became the opening Ronaldo needed. Football can spend weeks building a reputation and only seconds changing the ending.

By 2006, the television had changed. The world had changed. I had changed. Italy had Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluigi Buffon, Andrea Pirlo, Francesco Totti, Alessandro Del Piero, Daniele De Rossi and Marco Materazzi. France had Thierry Henry and Zidane. Germany had Philipp Lahm and Klose. Argentina had Juan Román Riquelme conducting the game with his unhurried majesty. Hernán Crespo, Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano and Maxi Rodríguez were there too. Maxi’s goal against Mexico remains one of those strikes that seems to pause time between the chest control and the volley. Riquelme never appeared to hurry because he made the match move according to his speed. In an age becoming obsessed with pace, he played as though time itself had agreed to wait. Then came the 2006 final. The headbutt. Zidane’s final walk. One of the greatest players ever left the greatest stage after a moment of anger, walking past the World Cup trophy he would never touch again as a player. It was shocking, tragic and strangely human. Football has always contained entire lives within a few seconds.

Then Maradona came to India. His first Kolkata visit in December 2008 produced the kind of madness that only this city can offer a footballer. People waited through the night. Roads filled with supporters. The city did not receive him as a retired sportsman arriving for a scheduled appearance. Kolkata received him as though a missing member of the family had finally come home. That is the peculiar relationship Kolkata had with Maradona. He had never played for an Indian club. He had never represented India. Most people had never seen him in person. None of that mattered. Love does not always require geographical logic. Kolkata had adopted him through television, mythology and the 1986 World Cup. When he finally came, the city merely received the man whose image had been living here for decades.

And then Messi himself came to Kolkata. On 2 September 2011, Argentina played Venezuela at Yuvabharati Krirangan. Messi walked onto the field as Argentina’s new captain, and the city that had worshipped Maradona now watched his successor in flesh and blood. Argentina won 1–0, Nicolás Otamendi scoring from a Messi corner. For one evening, the distance between Kolkata and Buenos Aires seemed to disappear.

Maradona returned to Kolkata in 2017. By then his body had changed and his playing years were far behind him, but the madness remained. The city gathered to see Maradona.

Not to forget, in December 2025, Messi too returned to India for a tour across four cities with Luis Suárez and Rodrigo De Paul. The Kolkata event descended into chaos and disappointment, but the extraordinary response across the country revealed how deeply he had entered India’s football imagination. Fourteen years after Kolkata had watched him as Argentina’s young captain, India welcomed him again as a World Cup winning legend.

In 2010, Spain finally turned beauty into victory. Xavi, Iniesta, Casillas, David Villa, Puyol and Sergio Ramos. Iniesta scored in the final and ran away carrying a message for his late friend Dani Jarque. Diego Forlán struck the Jabulani as though he alone had discovered how the strange ball worked. Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Thomas Müller, Mesut Özil and Bastian Schweinsteiger made that tournament memorable. Argentina had Messi. Argentina also had Maradona on the touchline. The old king and the new prince. For someone who loved Maradona and had already begun understanding the scale of Messi, that image was deeply emotional. Yet Germany tore Argentina apart, and the dream ended abruptly again.

Then came 2014. That World Cup will never be only a football memory for me. I lost my friend Shantanu on 29 June 2014. He was a Germany supporter. Exactly two weeks later, on 13 July 2014, Germany and Argentina met in the World Cup final at the Maracanã. Messi had carried Argentina through the tournament. Javier Mascherano played with the desperation of a man prepared to leave pieces of himself on the field. Sergio Romero had become a penalty hero. Ángel Di María’s injury remained a cruel absence. Gonzalo Higuaín had a chance that Argentina supporters still replay in their minds. Shantanu should have been there for the final. He should have watched Germany. He should have sent messages. He should have irritated me. We should have argued before the match, during the match and after it. He would have told me Germany were the better team. I would have told him Argentina had wasted their chances. Neither of us would have convinced the other, which is the proper purpose of a football argument. But he was gone. Mario Götze scored in extra time. Germany won 1–0. Argentina lost. Messi walked past the trophy. Germany celebrated their fourth World Cup. Yet my strongest memory from that night is not simply Götze’s goal. It is the conversation that could not happen. The mobile phone was there. The television picture was sharp. Communication technology had become faster than anything we had imagined during the antenna years. But there was nobody to call. That is the strange cruelty of progress. Technology can connect us instantly with almost anyone in the world, but it cannot reconnect one missing person.

In 2018, Croatia nearly completed one of the great World Cup stories. Luka Modrić, Ivan Rakitić, Ivan Perišić and Mario Mandžukić carried a small nation to the final. They could not complete the journey, but they made the world believe. France became champions. Mbappé announced himself to the world. Argentina’s campaign was chaotic, but one image from that tournament has remained with me. I saw the clip again on YouTube only the other day. Argentina against Nigeria. Messi playing. Maradona in the stands. It was real. It was not an imagined combination created by nostalgia. Messi scored a beautiful goal, controlling a long pass before finishing. Maradona watched from the gallery, praying, celebrating, suffering and reacting with the emotional restraint of a small cyclone. Messi was on the field carrying Argentina’s present. Maradona was in the stands carrying Argentina’s entire past. One was still writing his legend. The other had already become mythology. For me, that image contains an entire history of Argentine football.

Then came 2022. Messi. What else is there to say? For years, the World Cup had been used as the final argument against him. He had won almost everything else. He had broken records, created impossible moments and carried expectations no individual should have been asked to carry. Yet the one trophy remained missing. Argentina lost their opening match to Saudi Arabia, and the familiar fear returned. Perhaps the story would end in disappointment once more. But this time, Argentina recovered. Messi scored against Mexico. Argentina survived the extraordinary battle against the Netherlands. Emiliano Martínez expanded himself across the goal whenever destiny attempted to enter. Julián Álvarez ran without fear. Rodrigo De Paul gave everything. Alexis Mac Allister, Enzo Fernández, Otamendi, Romero and Molina became parts of something larger. Di María scored in the final after missing the 2014 final through injury. Mbappé refused to surrender. The match became chaos. Then came the penalties, Martínez’s save and Montiel walking towards the spot. The ball entered the net. Argentina were world champions. Messi lifted the World Cup. Maradona was no longer physically present, but he seemed to be everywhere. That night, I did not celebrate only for Messi. I celebrated for Maradona, Batistuta, Zanetti, Caniggia, Riquelme, Aimar, Crespo, Ayala, Mascherano and Di María. I celebrated for every Argentina team that had fallen short. I celebrated for the boy who had begun watching properly in 1990 and had returned every four years carrying the same unreasonable hope. I had grown older. But when Argentina won, that boy returned immediately. The journey from 1986 to 2022 was also a journey from antenna to digital.

We moved from grainy television pictures to cable connections, satellite channels, set top boxes, high definition broadcasts, internet streams, mobile phones and immediate replays. Once, we waited until the next day’s newspaper to study a photograph. Today, a goal becomes a thousand clips before the players return to the centre circle. During the antenna years, missing a moment meant losing it. Today, almost nothing is allowed to disappear. Yet memory does not necessarily become stronger because the picture is clearer. I remember carrying Dadu’s television more vividly than I remember the specifications of any modern screen. I remember the shouts towards the roof, the picture suddenly appearing, the fear that someone might accidentally touch the antenna, and the collective relief when the players stopped looking like ghosts. Those imperfect pictures remain perfect in memory.

Alongside Argentina and the World Cup, Indian football continued to occupy another part of my life. There were the names inherited from history: Gostha Pal, Sailen Manna, Chuni Goswami, P.K. Banerjee, Tulsidas Balaram and Jarnail Singh. Then came Shyam Thapa and the bicycle kick. Subrata Bhattacharya commanding the defence. Prasun Banerjee. Manas Bhattacharya. Mohammed Habib. Surajit Sengupta. Sudhir Karmakar. Subhash Bhowmick. Manoranjan Bhattacharya. Bikash Panji. Bhaskar Ganguly beneath the crossbar.

And Krishanu Dey. The Indian Maradona. Even the name carried romance. Krishanu did not merely move with the ball. He seemed to converse with it. In a football culture that often celebrated stamina, strength and discipline, Krishanu brought imagination. A touch, a turn or a pass would arrive from an angle nobody else had noticed. He played for both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, yet finally belonged to the larger mythology of Bengal football. His life ended far too early. His name still carries the sadness reserved for artists who leave before completing their work. Then came I.M. Vijayan, perhaps the most naturally gifted Indian footballer of his generation. Bhaichung Bhutia brought pace, courage and sharpness. There were Jo Paul Ancheri, Bruno Coutinho, Carlton Chapman, Tushar Rakshit, Raman Vijayan, Renedy Singh, Mahesh Gawli, Deepak Mondal, Climax Lawrence, Subrata Pal, Mehtab Hossain and Steven Dias. And then Sunil Chhetri. For years, Chhetri seemed to carry the hope of Indian football almost alone. He kept scoring, leading and asking people to come to the stadium. He kept reminding the country that Indian football deserved attention even while the structure around it repeatedly struggled to match his consistency.

In 2019, football entered our personal lives through Ananya’s work. She travelled to Singapore for a Gulf Oil production involving Sunil Chhetri and Manchester United players. She met them there, not as distant figures trapped inside a screen, but as people present during an ordinary working day. Chhetri signed a coloured football for us. That football is still with me. Unfortunately, the autograph could not be properly preserved on its coloured surface. Slowly, the ink faded. But the memory did not. Perhaps that ball represents memory better than a perfectly preserved souvenir could. The visible evidence has weakened, but I know who held the ball. I know who signed it. I know how it entered our lives. The signature faded. The story stayed. 😊

Mohun Bagan, of course, gave me another set of idols.

Chuni Goswami. Sailen Manna. Gostha Pal. Shyam Thapa. Subrata Bhattacharya. Prasun Banerjee. Chima Okorie, a force of nature. Jose Ramirez Barreto, the Green and Maroon magician. Bidesh Bose. Dipendu Biswas. Sony Norde gliding past defenders. Katsumi Yusa, Balwant Singh, Jeje Lalpekhlua, Shilton Paul, Pritam Kotal and many others. I have photographed Chuni Goswami. I have photographed Chima. I have photographed Bidesh Bose and a few other people connected with the club. I have been to the Mohun Bagan club many times. Even today, when I pass the club, my heart beats a little faster. It is difficult to explain that reaction rationally. A building appears. A ground appears. The familiar colours appear. Yet something inside immediately recognises home. At one point, I made two or three audiovisual films for Mohun Bagan. For one, I was allowed to handle a history that extended far beyond my own memories. The film still survives online, another small digital piece in the enormous archive of the club. During one of those assignments, I visited Bidesh Bose and photographed him and his house. Brojonath Da accompanied me. I photographed the two of them together. Strangely, I did not take a photograph of myself with Bidesh Bose. At the time, it probably did not feel important. When one is working, one keeps thinking about the required shots, light, frames and the next task. Only later does one realise that a photograph should have been taken. This is another lesson memory teaches us. Sometimes we preserve the assignment and forget to preserve ourselves within it. I have the photographs I took of Bidesh Bose. I have the memory of meeting him. I have the image of him with Brojonath Da. The photograph of Bidesh Bose and me does not exist. Yet the day does.

Then there is East Bengal. The rival. The neighbour. The necessary enemy. Mohun Bagan versus East Bengal was never merely a football match. The Derby divided families, friendships, neighbourhoods, offices and tea stalls. It was Ghoti against Bangal. Chingri against Ilish. Green and maroon against red and gold. Even the lunch menu could become a declaration of football allegiance. A prawn was not always just a prawn. A hilsa was not always just a fish. On Derby day, the kitchen itself could become partisan. The week before the Derby carried its own temperature. Newspapers were studied like confidential tactical documents. Team selections were discussed by people who had never conducted a training session in their lives but remained absolutely certain that the coach had no understanding of football. The result could determine the mood of a household. East Bengal’s five goal victory in 1975 remains a treasured historical document for one side and an unnecessary piece of information for the other. Then there was the 1997 Federation Cup semifinal. Amal Dutta and the Diamond system. P.K. Banerjee and the famous vocal tonic. Bhaichung Bhutia scoring three goals. Yuvabharati Krirangan filled beyond reason, turning a football match into civic mythology.

I have attended Derbies at Yuvabharati Krirangan. Nothing on television can fully reproduce that experience. The sound arrives physically. The colours divide the stadium. Every tackle produces an argument involving thousands of people. Every decision is correct for one half and a criminal conspiracy for the other. A goal does not merely alter the score. It changes the air. For those ninety minutes, Kolkata appears to breathe through one football. The rivalry could become fierce and occasionally foolish, but beneath it remained a shared culture. Mohun Bagan needed East Bengal. East Bengal needed Mohun Bagan. Without the other, something essential would disappear. After all the arguments about Ghoti and Bangal, Chingri and Ilish, Barreto and Bhaichung, we still returned to the same streets and the same tea stalls. That is Kolkata football. The rivalry is genuine. So is the relationship beneath it.

Football reached me not only through the field and television, but also through cinema.

For a Bengali, the first great football film memory almost inevitably leads to Dhanyee Meye, directed by Arabinda Mukhopadhyay. It was not merely a film containing football. It understood how football could enter family pride, village politics, romance, comedy and everyday Bengali madness. And then there was the song: “সব খেলার সেরা বাঙালির তুমি ফুটবল।” (Football, You Are the Greatest of All Games for Bengalis.) It was sung by Manna Dey with chorus, written by Pulak Bandyopadhyay and composed by Nachiketa Ghosh. The song did not merely praise football. It recognised a cultural truth. For Bengalis, football entered the para, the club room, the tram, the newspaper, the kitchen and the dining table. It created heroes, enemies, jokes, songs and family legends. It gave us reasons to quarrel with people we loved. Manna Dey sang the words, but generations of Bengalis supplied the evidence.

Then there was Saheb, directed by Bijoy Bose, with Tapas Paul as the young goalkeeper whose football dream became entangled with family responsibility and sacrifice. Football in Saheb was not decoration. It represented possibility. It represented the future through which a young man understood himself. That is why his sacrifice affected audiences so deeply. He did not merely give up a sporting opportunity. He surrendered a version of his life.

And there was Egaro, written and directed by Arun Roy, returning to the Immortal Eleven and the 1911 IFA Shield victory. The film arrived during the centenary year and attempted to bring cinematic life to a match that had long existed in Bengali historical memory.

I sometimes think Gostha Paul deserves a full biographical film. Not merely a collection of football achievements, but a proper human story about the man, the period, colonial India, the Maidan and the rise of an Indian sporting icon. Someone should make it.

Outside Bengal, Bend It Like Beckham, directed by Gurinder Chadha, showed how football could confront expectations about gender, family and cultural identity. Its central conflict was deeply Indian even though the story unfolded in Britain. Football became a route through which a young woman could claim her own life.

Then there are the documentaries. Films on Maradona, Messi, clubs, supporters, lost finals and fallen heroes repeatedly prove that football is one of cinema’s richest subjects. A match already contains dramatic structure. It has protagonists and antagonists, rhythm and interruption, close shots, crowds, suspense, reversals and an ending nobody can safely write in advance.

Finally, this brings me to the unfinished Indian dream. Every four years, we borrow another country. We support Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, England, Portugal or somebody else. We learn their players’ names. We remember their formations. We argue over their substitutions. We mourn their defeats as though our passports were issued in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin or Rome. But somewhere beneath all those borrowed loyalties, there remains one wish.

India at the FIFA World Cup.

I want to hear the Indian national anthem before an Indian match on football’s greatest stage. I want to see the Tricolour across the stands. I want to watch an Indian player touch the ball and understand that generations waited for that ordinary, extraordinary moment. Perhaps India will lose the first match. Perhaps the first pass will go backwards. Perhaps possession will be lost immediately. Perhaps the opposition will score. For those opening seconds, none of it will matter.

India will be there. I do not know when it will happen. I only hope I am alive to see it.

And perhaps, on that day, I will look at the coloured football still preserved with me. Chhetri’s signature may no longer be visible, but I will remember that it was once there.

Hope should never fade.

All these thoughts were moving through my mind during the 2026 World Cup semifinal.

Argentina were playing England and England had taken the lead. Argentina were running out of time. For a while, I was no longer completely inside the match. I was travelling elsewhere. I was thinking about this journey even though my eyes were glued to the screen.

And then... just then, Lionel Messi provided one stunning assist. Argentina equalised through Enzo Fernández. Before I had properly returned from memory, Messi produced another. Lautaro Martínez scored the winner. Argentina were in another World Cup final. And just like that, Messi, at 39, pulled me out of the past and returned me to the present.

Today, the antenna is gone. The picture no longer shakes. The television does not need to be carried out of Dadu’s room. Football reaches us in digital perfection.

Memory preserves what cameras, ink and technology cannot. Perhaps life has kept proving the song right.

সব খেলার সেরা বাঙালির তুমি ফুটবল। Football, You Are the Greatest of All Games for Bengalis. 😊 ⚽💚❤️🇦🇷🇮🇳

Photo: AI generated.