FIFA Under 17 World Cup: Some animals are more equal than others

Life is shit! Here I am celebrating my son’s twenties-something birthday but he’s in the wilds of Rajasthan, his sister is gallivanting somewhere in West Asia, and my wife is halfway to Hyderabad even as I key this in. All the colours have changed. Just like that. The reds and yellows of the hibiscus on the balcony look like the faded prints on a curtain. My coffee tastes like a burnt cardboard smoothie.

And the unkindest cut of all, this evening, Kolkata will get to see the final of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup.  But I’m a ‘political man’ and I have decided to boycott the ‘event’ in protest – and I miss our dog most of all because he would have been my shoulder to weep on.

Let me tell you about our dog, because he was definitely not an ordinary dog, in fact he’s an important ‘metaphor’ on this most dismal of days. When today a Spanish team – a young wannabe Barcelona FC (minus Catalonia, of course) – will  play tiki-taka from one end of the field to the other and exhaust the other team, as they take on England – a team that prides itself on its multiculturalism, and relies on a Marcus Rashford-lookalike  to break the monotony.

If I was watching the final, I reckon I’d support England for the more people of colour they have in the team – but I wouldn’t go to town over it. Were he alive, I suspect my dog would have some very nasty things to say about this ‘final’ while the two us glared at a dead television screen.

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The aforesaid dog was born in Bangalore but gave us signs he was different, fairly early in life. A Canadian woman who taught in the international school nearby, and bent to tickle his ears thought he was a St. Bernard! She got the colouring right but didn’t account for what a millet and beef bone could do for a 3-month-old pup. I went home, we duly named him Bernard.

We all noticed, as did friends, that Bernard had a distinguished presence, like an aura, even when young,  so we added a ‘Monsieur’ to it. Sounded good, suited him, he would look terrific with a monocle and top hat, but it was difficult to say “Monsieur Bernard, Monsieur Bernard, Monsieur Bernard” at the top of your voice when you just wanted to know who took a dump on top of your slippers.

But to say that Monsieur Bernard was not intelligent, would do him a great dishonour. He learnt to shake hands before a meal, bark as if to say “Thank you” before gobbling it up, and even die for his country in anticipation of a good meal if you so wished – all in a single day. By Day 2, he did everything like a well-choreographed routine before his plate hit the floor. There were certain things we were never able to teach him. Like, bark at visitors and bite them. Monsieur Bernard would welcome thieves if they knew what he understood.

He was the consummate actor. He’d bark at visitors, his hackles would be stiff, he’d look like he was about to tear you into bits, and all the visitor to the house had to do, was walk straight up to him and tickle his ears, while he licked your fingers and shivered in glee. So he died that rare creature, one that had never bitten anyone, not even the vet giving him his shots. He would complain though, loudly.

He had four differing dogs from Bangalore involved in his sociocultural make-up: his birth mother was a snappy black half-Pomeranian with a white trim on her neck and tail so no one knows how he landed up looking like a short, fit-looking but scrawny St. Bernard.

It was football that gave us our breakthrough to understanding his personality and attitude. He wasn’t some kind of retriever destined to be happy with fetching a ball thrown at him. A ball for him meant play in the fullest sense of the term. He got the ball in his mouth, or between his legs, you had to chase him.

By the time he was four months, kids at the local school where I used to coach football were begging me to stop bringing him to practice because he would run after the ball and when he got it, would paddle it along like a water-polo player cleaving the water with the ball trapped in a strong forward stroke. Nobody got the ball from him, and I never got around teaching him the rudiments of positional play. If I tied his leash to a tree on the ground, he would create a racket, the kids would leave him, and he would coach the team.

I left him home with a heavy heart when it came to coaching days, but he solved the problem of his name. Being the oldest in the family I was bestowed the honour. With great fanfare, and a new ball for the occasion, I solemnly named him Monsieur Bernard Koko, or Koko for short. Way easier than ‘Monsieur Bernard. I believed – I still do – that he was the reincarnation of an African Hound.  Almost prophetically, he was named in memory of a young boy from either Ghana, Mali or Niger – who may have had the nickname ‘Koko’, who had dreams of playing football for his country, who knew he could play like he was born to it, who could run like our Koko with the ball stuck to his legs.

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Not my Koko, and certainly not all of you reading this, were ever to know, that our great country – and many thousands of years before Brazil won their first World Cup bamboozling a ‘great white hope’ in their own country – was to play a football match with a great football team from Ghana.

The Indians of those days, of course, had assistance. “According to the intricacies of the legend,” it is written, “the Indians were aided by certain mythical forces that were apparently potent enough to transform the ball into all sorts of formidable beings/objects – from ferocious beasts (including a three-headed lion), through blazing fire, to spiky chunks of palm fruit – so fearful that the Ghanaian goalkeeper could only watch helplessly as these whizzed past him only to nestle in the twine in the form of footballs – all one hundred of them”. Yes, a hundred, the great Indian team of those days scored a hundred goals against Ghana, giving the poor Ghanaians one, measly, solitary goal.

If our Under 17 team were totally oblivious to this grand history, our MEA, only to be expected not only knew about this, they did their best to block it and save our Under 17 team from complacency. Some Ghanaians, rationalists perhaps, calculated why Ghana could not lose 1-100 against the Indians: said one named Odikro, “So, either the match was played the whole day, perhaps days, or the Indians scored every 45 seconds. Even myths should be accompanied with common sense.”

In reality, matters were very different in the dressing room of Ghana’s young ‘Black Stars’. From a letter from their country’s leader that was duly read out by the captain; to their High Commissioner himself exhorting them not to leave their country in tears; to their coach merely repeating the line, “It’s a myth, it’s a myth” over and over again; the young Black Stars walked out to play India in Delhi a few week back with great trepidation. Till the lemon-break, India kept them down to a solitary goal.

But in the second half, Ghana forgot ancient history, scored three more goals, and even got the crowd spontaneously cheering the way they could tip and tap the ball among themselves and cut from the half line to the defence as if they were strolling down Janpath.

Neither the Ghanaians or the Malians were to know that India withheld their magic until they could be trapped together.

That happened on October 22 when both the teams met in the quarter-finals at the Indira Gandhi stadium in Guwahati in conditions so appalling, somebody’s neck ought to have been hacked off, but who knows, someone as powerful as Indra may have been appealed to, and the rain never let up during the match.

This is what Atreyo Mukhopadhyay writing in The New Indian Express had to say:

“Conditions were such that there were talks the quarter-final might be postponed to the reserve day. Scenes of the ground staff sweeping water off the surface and spraying sawdust before kick-off lent credence to such talks.

“Thanks to the underground drainage system, puddles did not form, despite a downpour that kept getting heavy. Due to this, the ball did not float, but it stopped awkwardly, forcing players to adjust to the lack of bounce and rolling. The Ghana camp felt the match should have been called off. Mali did not say that after the 2-1 win, but agreed that conditions were difficult.

“Rules state that for a match to be called off, the ball has to float. While that was not the case, conditions were difficult, as the ball started stopping almost from the first minute. Passing became a tricky proposition and players had to make late adjustments while releasing and receiving the ball. It was particularly troublesome near the flanks along the centre line, where the ball was hardly moving”.

The above is, of course, balderdash!

There were at least fifty parts of the ground where the ball would come to a dead halt and fool everybody, players, FIFA officials, and spectators. Coaches from both sides protested: Playing on a waterlogged field, even if you can’t float a ball on it all the way to FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, is like running on sand. Like the winner of the game feeling like they paid two more matches than the rest. The matter was quickly played over.

Until Brazil had to play England in their quarter-final on the same ground that is, with the possibility of more rain, and then everyone including Indra, FIFA and the All India Football Federation got conscientious: Javier Ceppi, director of the local organising committee of the Cup, said no ground like Guwahati could have hosted a football match.

“To all those who have said the drainage system was clogged,” he told the press, “I will say that it was clear. Guwahati was twice voted best ground in the Indian Super League (ISL). Drainage was never an issue, it was up to standard. We followed all the requirements FIFA had stipulated.”

Replying to what he would have done differently, he was unflappable. “If matches had been staggered,” Ceppi said, “we wouldn’t have needed to shift. But a very physical game between Mali and Ghana had happened and we needed to get the ground ready in three days amid almost continuous rain. It was unfortunate for the people of Guwahati but really no ground could have sustained such rain and still had a game. ”

Until Brazil had to play England that is, and their matches were shifted from the rain of Guwahati to the superb field in Kolkata, both the teams flown in by a specially charted plane.

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It makes me wonder then, what Monsieur Bernard Koko would have said about the three West African nations he was made to spiritually oversee. What chance did Ghana, Mali and Niger have against the old ‘First World’ politics of FIFA and the big guns? Do they match the financial clout of the English Premier League? Do they have a Neymar with his zillions, Messi and Ronaldo with their trillions endorsing FIFA?

And doesn’t everyone know what TV rights to telecast the games mean in rupees and paisa? In India, Praful Patel of the All India Football Federation has already been making a hoo-hah about being good enough to host the Under 20 World Cup, while Mrs Ambani, as if on cue, comes on TV at half-time telling us sweetly that football has a future in India.

Poor Niger! I wonder if they heard how many people mispronounced their name, how many TV announcers changed them to Nigeria! In a country that only makes the news when there’s a bombing in Bamako or US soldiers die in a shadow war. Niger is a new entrant to the beautiful game, having got in the light in 2015.

When there’s a bombing in Bamako, the US and British embassies will release a warning on an “increased threat of attacks”, listing diplomatic missions, places of worship and “other locations in Bamako where Westerners frequent” among potential targets. “Avoid vulnerable locations with poor security measures in place, including hotels, restaurants, and churches,” will read their statement. The US  will warn their citizens against all travel to Mali, while the British Government advise against all travel to northern areas and “all but essential travel” to Bamako and the south.

You could say that the young players from Niger viewed their visit to India to play football as “essential travel”!

When it comes to Ghana and Mali, FIFA and the AIFF should feel stupid, with their genuinely multicultural teams and their impeccable track record. “The Ghanaian team have been two-time FIFA Under 17 World Cup champion in 1991 and 1995. Twice runners-up in 1993 and 1997. Ghana has participated in nine of the 17 World Cup events starting with their first in Scotland 1989 through dominating the competition in the 1990s where at one time they qualified for 4 consecutive World Cup finals, Italy 1991, Japan 1993, Ecuador 1995 and Egypt 1997. In South Korea 2007, they lost in the World Cup semi-finals 1-2 to Spain in extra time.”

Mali, compared to Ghana (or Nigeria) are newer entrants, participating in four Under 17 World Cups, their best performance in the World Cup in Chile where they were runners-up. Although their story doesn’t end there.

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So the day came to a close. The TV was on for the match between Mali and Brazil to fight for the third place. The boys from Mali played as if they were the Brazilians, displaying an exuberance actually missing in their opponents. Often, they brought gasps of delight as they cut through the Brazilian half-line in neat little triangular moves that left the Brazilians rooted. Had the Kolkata stands not already bought their yellow Brazil T-Shirts, they may even have shifted sides. Mali must have had about 20 shots at the Brazilian goal but couldn’t score. The Brazilians managed half a dozen, scored twice.

Maybe luck, maybe Indra, whatever, went against Mali. But both Ghana and Mali will know that they were done in by FIFA and the AIFF, and Monsieur Bernard Koko and I, as the clock struck eight, watched a blank screen playing out the real final between the two.

Who won the match between Spain and England? Neither of us could care less.