Occupied discussing election results, Kolkata has also been obsessed about a football match. India versus Kuwait at the Salt Lake Stadium is a crucial encounter. On it hinges the national team’s chances of progressing to the next round of World Cup qualifiers.
Forget that for the moment. For the city and the country, it’s a huge occasion only because its Sunil Chhetri’s farewell in national colours on Thursday.
This is a hub known for its love for football and for its sense for celebrating the moment. In social gatherings over the last few days, the question has been “Dada, do you have a ticket?” Rates have soared in the black market.
Connected with football or not, everybody is asking for one. There are people flying in from Bengaluru, without the assurance of getting entry into the stadium.
This is the victory Chhetri has achieved, no matter what his team does against a side it had beaten 1-0 in the away encounter. To turn a mass, oblivious to Indian football and tuned into European leagues, into followers of what happens back home is a tectonic shift. Nobody used to bother about what these boys are doing. Now they do and are ready to form beelines on the turnstiles.
This is a social change. Those who study behavioural patterns along academic lines will be able to explain better, but for regulars to local football and even matches involving the Indian team about a decade ago, the transformation is vivid. A class of people never interested in what happens here has become ardent fans. They are ready to spend and pack a stadium with a capacity of 60,000 plus.
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The initial credit for this goes to Bhaichung Bhutia, but to take it forward and give it a wider display is a Chhetri legacy. He is the first celebrated footballer who showed that by sheer dint of calibre and sacrifice — he doesn’t like the word but that is exactly what he has done as a professional player — one can go places one himself had not thought of. Chhetri is not just a footballer. He is a movement.
Let us not compare and get swayed by marketing dummies. It’s a fact that Chhetri is among the leading scorers in contemporary football behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Based just on him, a club called Bengaluru FC was formed, which has become one of the best-run clubs in India and achieved remarkable success.
At the recent RevSportz session on Chhetri, it was mentioned that this striker’s biggest contribution to Indian football has been his ability to take it to uncharted territory. That means the affluent, urban, English-medium kids. No discrimination intended, it was hitting the nail on the head. Because of Chhetri, children living on desktop football have tuned into the home fare.
In Bengaluru’s Kanteerava Stadium, hundreds are seen sporting ‘Chhetri’ shirts. Can you believe this in a city breathing Virat Kohli? Bengaluru has other sports icons as well. But by charisma, commitment, class and a striking ability to score a point, Chhetri has broken frontiers and captured the imaginations of a hitherto disinterested populace.
This is a sociological phenomenon. He has scored 94 goals from some 150 matches in national colours over 19 years and all that is fine. The bigger picture is Chhetri has made Indian football household and fashionable. The second one is important for its commercial purposes. That’s a potentially game-changing impact on Indian football, which is a looked down upon commodity.
It’s sad that Chhetri’s departure is coming at a time Indian football is trying to look up after days of drudgery. He has been the commander of this change and the team will miss his talismanic presence if it makes it to the next round of the qualifiers. But, don’t forget that thousands will tune in if that happens. And, that will be because of Chhetri, the complete Indian football role model.