![\"For](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-134634605,imgsize-162906,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/graffiti-in-a-kolkata-lane.jpg\" "\\"Graffiti")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAs the city gears up to host Vini Jr & Co for tomorrow\u2019s friendly, stars of India\u2019s golden era talk of a lifelong romance ignited by match reports and the odd footage<\/span>From Argentine greats Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi to Germany\u2019s Oliver Kahn, Kolkata has hosted some of football\u2019s greatest icons down the years. Yet, the city holds a special place for Brazil, a love affair that began with its first breakout stars and is now set to only deepen when Vinicius Jr and his teammates arrive for the friendly they play against India on Saturday at Salt Lake Stadium.Coach Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s boys are ranked No.6 in world football. India are a distant No.138. Some veterans have commented on the audacity of a lowly-ranked side taking on one of the giants of the game, but when Brazil first captured the imagination of football fans in India, it had more to do with a sense of kinship than purely adulation.Dreaming without visuals<\/span>Brazil\u2019s rise coincided with India\u2019s emergence as the superpower of Asian football, a golden era \u2014 notwithstanding the missed chance of taking part in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil \u2014 marked by triumphs at two Asian Games (1951, 1962) and a fourth-placed finish at the 1956 Olympics. As Brazil shook up football with its working-class, mixed-race team playing a unique brand of free-flowing football, India turned to it for inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring our time, we only wanted to play like Brazil. Because they were the No.1 team and we also wanted to be No.1,\u201d former footballer Shyam Thapa told TOI. \u201cWe used to read a lot about Brazil in newspapers and were instantly drawn to this image of a team that might be economically poor like us but had the gift to conjure magic on the field and boss over European elites,\u201d recalls Thapa.This was before the era of live telecast and highlight shows, with imagination filling in the details that reports could not convey. \u201cRemember those were pre-TV days and we didn\u2019t have the opportunity to watch Brazil live. So, we used to visualise their football magic in our own way. When Chuni-da dribbled past with one of his famous body feints, we would marvel at the move, saying it would make even Garrincha proud,\u201d says Gautam Sarkar, a star footballer of the 1970s, referring to Indian legend Chuni Goswami and the Brazilian master considered to be among the greatest dribblers of the game.\u201cIn my mind, I discovered my Brazil through Kajol Mukherjee\u2019s control and touch, Bengal Nagpur Railway star Rajendra Mohan\u2019s running with and without the ball and, later, in Surajit Sengupta\u2019s artistry,\u201d adds Sarkar.But it wouldn\u2019t be long before Kolkata found it could put faces to the names that set the city\u2019s football pulse racing.<\/p>\n Coach Datta\u2019s Projector<\/span>Amal Datta\u2019s career as a footballer never matched the ripples he would later create in his coaching avatar. Giving up his playing career prematurely to travel to England for a one-year FA coaching course, he returned in 1960 with a certificate that made him India\u2019s first professional coach. In his luggage was a projector and grainy video clips that would give many in the city their first glimpse of Pele, Garrincha, Didi, Vava and Zagallo en route to winning the 1958 and 1962 World Cup finals.\u201cAmal-da\u2019s clippings on the projector screen became an absolute craze in the city during the 1960s. He also used to tell the audience to focus on and study the Brazilians\u2019 movements on and off the ball,\u201d recalls Sarkar.Then, in the 70s, came the documentary called, \u2018Giants of Brazil\u2019. \u201cWhen it was screened for the first time at Lighthouse cinema, it resonated profoundly with the public,\u201d says Gautam Roy, a football statistician. \u201cReading about Brazilian football and their artistes in newspapers and magazines was the sole source for firing our imagination. But seeing the documentary just drove up the craze,\u201d he adds, noting how the hype would go on to hit stratospheric levels during Pele\u2019s 1977 visit.Pele Comes CallingWhen Pele and his New York Cosmos club came calling, two of India\u2019s top club sides presented a picture of contrasts. For Mohun Bagan, the club synonymous with awakenings of national pride, those were turbulent times. Their city rivals, East Bengal, had emerged as the undisputed rulers of Indian football and were still basking in the glow of their 5-0 thrashing of Bagan in the IFA Shield final of 1975.But, in 1976, Bagan general secretary Dhiren Dey pulled off a coup by snatching a host of players from East Bengal. It was around the same time that he learnt of Cosmos\u2019s proposed tour of Asia. He quickly chalked out a plan to cash in on the visit. \u201cI had already committed myself to East Bengal when he (Dey) proposed that I play for Bagan and grab the opportunity of taking the field against Pele. It was an offer too tempting for me to ignore,\u201d says Shyam Thapa, who scored in the 2-2 tie against Cosmos at Eden Gardens on Sept 24, 1977.<\/p>\n Share your thoughts in the comments<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\".\"](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-29548,msid-134634636\/.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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