In August 1982, Doordarshan introduced a national telecast around the time of the Delhi Asian Games, (in color, too) – and as a kid I was able to watch Appu (the mascot) and the games live along with my school-buddies at a hill-station in South India. Unfortunately, Doordarshan did not telecast the truly major sporting event of year, the 1982 soccer World Cup, which had concluded a few months before in Spain, when Italy regained the cup after 44 years!
The Asian Games telecast set the stage for a lot of good things that were to follow immediately on television. And we have come a long way since then – the Internet, YouTube, Twitter, High Definition television, live-stadium telecasts are amongst many options one has to follow sports.
In 1986, four years after Appu , India enjoyed a live telecast of the World Cup tournament hosted in Mexico. And what an experience it was! I was hooked, and have followed every World Cup since then. As a personal endeavor, whenever I have moved to a new location, I have tried to imbibe local flavors, cultures and habits. This included appreciating local pastimes especially games, be it the National Football League, NASCAR, English Premier League and now, the Indian Premier League. But every four years for one month, irrespective of other activities, I am sipping cup-o-mundial and looking for props like the Mexican wave, soccer songs or (as now) the drones of vuvuzelas to make it through late nights. There is also a sense of nostalgia: a familiar connection with other soccer fans around the world involving discussions & arguments, and an emotional roller-coaster involving near-misses, wins, losses, and high drama. This year, it is all amplified, thanks to social media like Facebook and Twitter.
In the 1986 World Cup, we were introduced to this shaggy-haired talented Argentine player – Diego Maradona who ran circles around his opponents while leading his team to the championship. And what circles these were – he exploded into action against England in the semi-final, single-handedly beat England by scoring two goals – one with his now infamous Hand of God and the other one that FIFA declared the goal of the century. Defeating West Germany in the final, Maradona made Franz Beckenbauer, the German manager wait another four years before he became the first man to win a World Cup both as captain and as manager. This was a feat that Maradona himself tried unsuccessfully to repeat this year. He couldn’t as Argentina were shuttled out viciously (4:0) by Germany, in an ironic twist of fate.
Even before the momentous 1986 World Cup telecast, I was already playing soccer. We juniors in school were allowed to join our seniors in the occasional game. It was a riotous affair, with a bunch of us chasing the ball all over the field and the bigger ones prevailing, mostly. The delight of dribbling the ball past an opponent, scoring a goal or wildly clearing the ball out of an opponent’s reach was not dampened in the least by the arguments and the occasional bruised lip or knee when one plays soccer. Fouls like ‘trip’, ‘hand’, ‘dangerous play’, or a suspect-goal were quickly resolved by the seniors and the game continued. It was only several years later that we were coached on the subtleties of soccer – like the need to maintain positions, practice skills like trapping, passing and dribbling, and to work as a team, including how to use the offside trap effectively. Mr Manisekharan was our first coach. Having cut his soccer teeth in Pondicherry, he brought a distinctly Tamil-French attitude to the game. I can still recall his tough drills and his exhortations of “podrah, minus podrah” (‘do, minus, do’ like Quick Gun Murugan would say it), for us to unlearn our tendencies to always move the ball forward. These days, I often wonder if that is what coaches are still yelling or gesticulating from the sidelines.
Inter-murals and inter-school competitions were fiercely contested. We eagerly awaited match days, when we would either host another school or make a trip to another campus and enjoy most of the day off 
. After our new coach, we started to win matches regularly, which was unusual for us and a shot in the arm for our soccer prowess. The winning attitude continues to this day, when as part of a team of old students, we were shot out 7-0 (ouch!) by the school’s intermediate-level team at a recent alumni reunion hosted at the school. Having seen Spain’s performance in this World Cup, I am convinced that with two Spanish ex-pat kids on the school team, there was nothing the alumni could’ve done to avoid this drubbing.
Of course, this loss does not compare to the huge 21-1 beating that my house team received in a junior inter-mural competition. Yes, that was a soccer game. Not badminton, not ping-pong. What’s worse is that I captained the losing side. I couldn’t look my house captain or coach in the eye for a month at least afterwards! My reason to not give up the excruciating 90-minute long game even after it was plainly obvious that we were going to be mercilessly beaten – I thought it cowardly. I was filled with a sense of bravado given that we’d lost our previous game by a decent margin! A lesson well learnt for life in that experience. I empathize with North Korea in their 7-0 defeat by Portugal. Obviously, they were feeling good going into the game with Portugal, having only lost their previous game by a single goal to mighty Brazil.
I continued to recreationally play the game for a couple of decades, until a busted knee made me put my cleats and shin guards away forever. When I returned to Bangalore from school, I played soccer with my neighborhood buddies, where we were the only ones not playing cricket. Our team somehow ended up beating every other team in the area including college teams and semi-professionals. Our dominance might’ve had something to do with the fact that our practice sessions were in a small walled-in plot, requiring special skills to dribble & score, and our regular playground was sometimes shared with part of a cricket game & the occasional cyclist, requiring exemplary passing skills. Our practice sessions comprised a motley bunch with everyone from school kids to retirees (at least a couple) joining in for a scrimmage. And yes, we used the back pass and offside trap very effectively to win our friendly matches.
When I started college in Bangalore, I was selected for the soccer team which went on to place 2nd in the university in my senior year. But it was no wonder that we were eclipsed by the better performing basketball & cricket teams – the latter included several members of the state team and at least one member of the Indian team 
. In our final match of the university tournament, we came up against this team from a relatively rural part of the state. The first few minutes of the game were evenly balanced between the two teams, until the opposing team had a decent opportunity to score, which they squandered. This team couldn’t blame any Jabulani ball or the refereeing. The culprit looked at his coach who snapped at him. Thereupon, the entire team, including the goalie, stopped whatever they were doing and promptly executed a front roll each as a punishment! We had never seen anything quite like this before – the entire team was disciplined for one player’s poor performance and they took it as a team. We lost the mental battle then and eventually the game. Our opponents executed many a front roll during the game and I think this was team-work at its best. Or intimidation tactics. Or both.
A few years after graduating I joined several of my engineering brethren in pursuing higher education and a subsequent career abroad. During my time at a US university, I was part of an Indian team that took part in a couple of ‘mini World Cup’ soccer tournaments organized by the International Students’ Association. India made it to the semi-finals twice, losing out to the Koreans and then the Italians, if I correctly recall! I am also certain that the scores were nowhere close to bad, especially given that each half was only 20 minutes. The Indian team was proud that we stood up to the Italians when it counted.
Through all this I continued to revel in World Cup soccer every 4 years. My favorites have changed over the years. In 1986, I was unsure which team to back, until West Germany and to some extent, Argentina were found to be worthy of my support. I secretly wanted West Germany to win that World Cup, while delighting in good soccer and the performances of players like Maradona, Gary Linekar and Rudi Völler. Over the years, I have backed Italy in 1990 & 1994 (Roberto Baggio!), Brazil in 1998 & 2002 (????) and Portugal in 2006 (Decco, Ronaldo). I also have 2nd favorites in these tournaments, usually one amongst Germany, Holland and Spain. BTW, if you look up Wikipedia, you will see that none of my favorite teams won the cup in those years. Sigh. Except for Brazil in 2002, but one cannot really go wrong backing Brazil, because Brazil always wins, sooner or later.
I am not surprised that an octopus named Paul has come back to haunt me now, when I need to make a call on who will win the cup. Paul, who has Germany and the entire world in a tizzy after correctly picking the victor in 8 German games – including when Germany would lose in the semi-final against Spain, seems better at calling victors than I am at calling champions. This is probably because I am cursed by ‘Paul’. At the same school where I learnt to play soccer, we had an English teacher called Paul for a year. He was a strict disciplinarian who didn’t really care much for soccer but had a penchant for sneaking up on players returning late from playgrounds for study hour, and hauling them up. I was low on practice and didn’t make it to the soccer team that year! And then he also tore into me for my English composition skills, which has left me scarred for life, and unable to do any writing for several years – until now. If you have an issue with the blog, blame Paul . The rest of the world, except Spain, already is.
The Dutch were always a curiosity. Having read about and seen footage of Johann Cryuff and his unlucky team who were denied in two World Cup finals – around the time that I was born, this was a team that had expectations weighing down on them in every World Cup. Unique proponents of total football, I still recall the pressure on the team that included Rudd Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Marco Van Basten, the ‘Oranje’ trio who were expected to bring the cup back in 1990, having been recently crowned European champs . They were knocked out after the league stage by eventual champs West Germany. Their best performance until the final of 2010, was a 4th place in 1998. The Dutch has been a team with immense potential but failing on big occasions. This year the team, with Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder and Robin Van Persie in excellent form is very looking very competitive. The 2nd half in the quarter-final against Brazil showed the fighting spirit of this team when they came from a goal down to win.
Portugal and Spain were my favorites in the 2006 edition of the cup. Previously I knew very little about Spanish soccer, apart from sketchy knowledge of their clubs. But one realized after watching a few games that the team comprised a bunch of really talented players who just weren’t gelling as a team. Since 2008, this team has been different. They’ve gelled as a team under coach Vincente Del Bosque and are dominating with their midfield play and dominating possession, as they showed in the semi-final against Germany where powerful counter-attacks was nullified because the Germans hardly had possession of the ball. This team is also packed with talent like Xavi, Cesc Fabregas, Andres Iniesta and Fernando Torres, and the in-from David Villa – and any of them can turn the game for Spain.
I am going with Paul and calling the 2010 World Cup for Spain. I expect them to win in regular time with a slim margin of 1-0. There is still a small chance that the game will go into penalties (after a lot of missed Spanish chances in regular time), in which case either team can win.