Go Argentina Go!

It was a similar Sunday evening 24 years ago. A 10 year old boy’s imagination was aflutter with a miniature dream built carefully over a period of 1 month. His father’s enthusiasm had touched him and kept him awake for late hours almost every day. And that Sunday was the finale.

 

Italia ’90 was my introduction to the world’s greatest sporting event. I had kept a track of all the matches in the colourful poster which my father had gifted me. Yes, in those days such simple stuff was very precious and I carefully noted the goals against each team right from the play-offs till the semi-finals. I had collected as many player cards that I could from wrappers of a certain confectionary company, which was quite a craze with my classmates. I was super charged the whole day. On my father’s advice, I had my dinner early and went to sleep. Around the scheduled time, he came to my room and gently woke me up. Still with groggy eyes, I gladly followed him to our drawing room and we tuned in.

 

At that impressionable age, a boy generally imbibes his father’s interests and choices. He was a great fan of Maradona and seeing the star playing effortlessly had mesmerized me too! In my heart of hearts I was fully confident that Argentina it would be. The feeling was generously helped with dollops of reminders in the Times of India of their triumph 4 years ago against the same opponents.

 

The match began with much fanfare and by then my excitement had reached a crescendo. Soon I got alarmed as Germany began to attack quite regularly. Inspite of their attempts, Germany failed to convert and Argentina also did not achieve any success. My father pointed out that the Germans had marked Maradona very painstakingly. I was also feeling that the Maradona magic was not visible tonight. Things did not become any better in the second half either. Both teams began to get more desperate as seconds ticked away. Attacks and counter attacks were galore but still no goal in sight. In fact Italia ’90 recorded the least number of goals scored in a world cup.

 

Just when we were beginning to anticipate that the match would spill over to extra time, disaster struck. Around the 85^th minute, in one of the attacks made by the determined German forwards, the referee dubiously awarded a penalty to Germany for a supposedly bad tackle. Adding insult to injury the Argentine defender was sent off with a red card. When that penalty was given to Germany, somewhere I had felt that justice had not been done. Moreover when the red card was shown to the offender and almost the whole Argentine team surrounded the referee, who promptly held up a yellow card, my innocent instinct said aloud: See Baba, they all complained and the red card has become yellow!

 

The inevitable happened, which sealed Argentina’s fate. Germany had their revenge. My hero was reduced to tears when the final whistle went off a few minutes later. I stared in disbelief as the screens flashed elated expressions of the winning team’s glorious players and their equally vociferous supporters. I felt hurt and heartbroken. I remember carrying the weight of that disappointment for many days thereafter. It was akin to a personal defeat.

 

Still smarting from that defeat and consequent suffering, till date it has been Argentina for me. I have followed their losses and slide over the years. But somewhere deep down hope remained that one day this great team will rise from the ashes and regain its rightful glory.

 

Today it’s a Sunday again and it seems that time has stood still for 24 years. For Baba & me, today once again that contest will return but in the intervening years, our drawing rooms are separated by about 1400 kms – my father in Kolkata & me in Gurgaon. But our spirits are indomitable and very much alive to the greatest contest on earth!

 

Argentina has fought hard to climb the summit. They have a chance to redeem themselves and the stage could not have been better set for them. Their adversaries are riding high on admirable defeat of the hosts. Argentina is certainly the underdog this time. If all of their players can play their optimum tonight, no force on earth can stop them from conquering the crown! Go Argentina Go!