Author: RevSportz Comment

In his ode to Johnny Unitas, his childhood hero, the American sportswriter Frank Deford wrote: “Sometimes, even if it was only yesterday, or even if it just feels like it was only yesterday…. Sometimes, no matter how detailed the historical accounts, no matter how many the eyewitnesses, no matter how complete the statistics, no matter how vivid the film…. Sometimes, I’m sorry, but…. Sometimes, you just had to be there. That was the way it was with Johnny Unitas in the prime of his life, when he played for the Baltimore Colts and changed a team and a city and…

The high priests of English cricket writing were all in attendance at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on April 18, 2008. Along with curiosity, they bought with them healthy doses of scepticism and cynicism. Yes, the world’s leading players had all been signed up at the first Indian Premier League (IPL) auction. But this was India, remember? Though the heat-dust-and-snake-charmer narratives had started to fade, few expected the country to pull off an event on this scale. Several of the players, and their agents, arrived for the competition as though on a paid holiday. Agents were talking of waterfront apartments…

For Barcelona, the unkindest cuts came from two old boys. Luis Enrique played 300 times for the club as a player, and had an incredible win percentage of 76.24 in the three seasons he spent at the Nou Camp as coach (2014-17). He also remains the last Barca coach to lead them to Champions League glory (2015). Ousmane Dembele arrived in the city a couple of months after Enrique left, for a staggering fee of €105 million, plus millions in add-ons. When he left for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) six years later – after 40 goals in 185 games – he…

Disclaimer: This column has no access to Hardik Pandya’s mind or its inner behaviour. But midway through that final over at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday night, it would have been fascinating to peep inside. As he stood at the top of his bowling mark, what was Pandya thinking? The man he was preparing to bowl to wasn’t just anyone. If Pandya today is captain of Mumbai Indians and one of cricket’s most marketable stars, it’s because of MS Dhoni and the calm advice he received in the cauldron of the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru eight years ago. Make no…

When Lalit Modi made the Indian Premier League (IPL) a reality more than a decade and a half ago, his stated aim couldn’t have been clearer. One day, the IPL franchises would be as big as, if not bigger than, the teams he had watched as a college student in the USA, or comparable with the biggest football clubs of Europe. He wanted the franchises to have that kind of dedicated fan base, who would fill the stadiums come rain or shine. Those fans would also then become the teams’ biggest money-spinners, buying merchandise and attracting eight-digit sponsorship deals by…

“A lot of politics and equation are at play here. The coach and these players have a pact and will invariably support each other. These players have only the right to speak in the team [sic]. No one can counter them. “Everyone is content to speak behind their back but none is willing to stand up to them.” These quotes, featured on News9, were attributed to an India men’s football team player. There is no reason to doubt their veracity, but the fact that those soundbites have received such airplay is testament to how little the general public understands dressing-room…

As he had in every landmark game in his storied career, Sunil Chhetri scored in his 150th match for India – his 94th goal for the national side coming from the penalty spot – to have his side poised on the threshold of progress to the third round of Asian World Cup qualifying. But the lack of control and the calamitous defensive mistakes that have bedevilled the Indian team in recent months came back to haunt them as Afghanistan found two late goals that their spirit and endeavour richly deserved. That both came gift-wrapped from India will be no consolation…

Sunil Chhetri played his 99th match for India in June 2018, against a second-string Chinese Taipei side. His hat-trick took him to 60 goals in international football, but it was what happened afterwards that caused a real buzz on social media. The Taipei game had been watched by only 2,569 fans in Mumbai. Less than a fortnight earlier, more than 30,000 had witnessed the IPL final, even though the hometown Mumbai Indians hadn’t made it. Something in Chhetri snapped that night of the Taipei game and he took to social media. “To all of you who are fans of big…

Across more than 90 years of Test cricket, 23 Indian bowlers have taken at least 100 Test wickets. Of those, five have been off-spinners, but it’s safe to say that Ravichandran Ashwin and his methods are worlds apart from his predecessors. Two of them, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivasan Venkataraghavan, were part of the legendary quartet of the 1960s and ’70s, while Harbhajan Singh was the man whose match-winning boots Ashwin had the task of slipping into. As for Shivlal Yadav, he was one of the luckless few who had to succeed in what is still considered the golden generation of…

The summer of 2009 was a traumatic one for Manchester United. After a 2-0 loss to Barcelona and Pep Guardiola in the Champions League final, Cristiano Ronaldo decamped to Real Madrid. Yet, it wasn’t all doom and gloom at Carrington. Despite accusations of unethical behaviour from Le Havre, United managed to entice the 16-year-old Paul Pogba to Old Trafford. Even the jaded veterans who had watched Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry years earlier were calling Pogba, who has roots in Guinea, a generational talent. And after the Class of ’92 and the progress made by Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney under…