The 'Messi' Vortex of Contrasting Disparates

In the end, the final of the football World Cup had boiled down to a contest between two vastly contrasting and disparate entities. 

A contest between one man – Messi – who, long touted to be the successor of the legendary Argentine football wizard Diego Maradona, had still not managed to lead his team to victory in this huge stage. And the entire German squad, which looked like it didn’t have any weaknesses at all. 

Logically, there was no looking beyond Germany when it came to expecting the results of the final. But to those who had thrust Messi into the shoes of a legend, logic never entered reasoning. And this is perhaps where, that the premise started to unravel. 

Taking a gaze back at the not-so-distant final, I can’t help but correlate Messi to India’s own prodigy, Sachin Tendulkar. Like Messi, Sachin Tendulkar too was cast – on countless occasions – in the mould of the saviour to rescue the Indian cricket team from its dregs of misery. Tendulkar did that too, not once or twice, but for years on end. A feat which, in the end, put him up on a pedestal that possibly no other Indian cricketer can equal. 

But unlike in the case with Messi, Tendulkar had no predecessors with looming records. Tendulkar’s greatness on the cricketing field stem from his own individuality – again, something’s that so unique that cannot be compared to any other cricketer. And moreover, irrespective of Tendulkar’s indispensability in the Indian cricketing team, as the years went by, even that indispensability evolved ensuring that Indian cricketing ranks didn’t remain a one-man show forever. 

Diego Maradona was – and perhaps still is – the next best thing to sliced bread as far as Argentine and international football is concerned. In a team sport, he single-handedly – at times, infamously even – managed to lead his nation to World Cup laurels and still continues to inspire his nation, despite being away from active action for almost two decades now. 

A regular tour-de-force was thus Señor Maradona. 

Contrarily, when gauging the impact that Messi had on this World Cup, immensely glaring discrepancies emerge. For a footballer par excellence, his performances were pretty average for most parts of the event. At times, even less than that. 

Against Germany, he wasn’t able to challenge or trouble their defenders much and the few good chances he got, were frittered away because of his team-mates’ inability to lend him support. And completely dissimilar to the fabled hero of the Argentine football past, there was no wiliness visible from him, leaving him almost nondescript on the field. Expectations remained unfulfilled with no last-gasp equaliser to the beauty scored by Götze that would have given the Argentines some brace to push the game to the penalties. 

Needless to say, the wait for reclaiming the World Cup title still continues for Argentina as does the wait to hold on to a slice of this tale of pride prolongs for Messi. They aren’t there yet, haven’t re-attained that level of greatness that defined them once, way back. Nor is Messi, despite his heroics at the highest stages of club level football. 

Moreover, for Messi personally, in the wake of what was evident for most parts at Maracana, to rub on more injuries, the stakes aren’t definitely aren't going to get any simpler for him to organise anew.

The Nation's a Stage, not: Of Disenchantments and Disillusions

For all the good that the IPL has done for sports and sports broadcasting in India, it’s done more harm in return. It’s quite evident in the way the studio presentation program has been put about.

On the face of it, though I can simply say that there are a lot of parallels between the panel of experts for the IPL and the FIFA World Cup. But to say that would be a huge understatement – and not in the complimentary way. 

A host who talks about everything except football – even to the point of callously disregarding the fact that a few stadiums are still under construction with a remark that by the time the event reaches the midway mark, they will get done – a glamorously decked up model/ compère who looks like she’s come for a premier of a hot-shot Hindi movie and a couple of experts, namely Peter Crouch and Mikhail Silvestre.  

The hosts are still bearable as are the experts. It’s the addition of John Abraham that however forms the entire point of contention. An overkill that was completely unwarranted, his addition completely spoiled any lingering interest in watching an already downward spiralling pre-match-show program.

In the IPL studio program however, one gets to listen to Mr. Sidhu’s wacky – this I do mean in a certain complimentarily fashion – but here, listening to Mr. Abraham’s comments on his personal experiences of being a football fan grated on nerves. Even more so, when he made the biggest blunder – at least to a Man Utd fan – of referring to the club as Man U. As someone who’s made the mistake once in her rookie days and the repercussions that followed, it was a faux pas that should have – considering that the host of the show had just touted him to be an immensely huge fan of the sport – never occurred. 

For a nation whose addiction is second only to football, perhaps even surpassing it in some quarters, this is the kind of thing that shows us with our weakness to glamorise everything. Even a much glamorised sport like football. 

With regard to the IPL, the core of the format relies on glamour – indeed is it not the more contemporary re-blending of a sport that was once the epitome of formalness and gentlemanliness? IPL and T20 cricket may thrive on making the cricketing format smaller for those who had been otherwise disenchanted with cricket, as a whole. Football doesn’t suffer the same predicament as cricket with an already short time-span and various other coffers providing entertainment; including the footballers themselves, who are the heartthrob of millions and gazillions of girls across the world. 

These things however are never meant to be aired on an expert panel. Especially on an expert panel on football, for the most prestigious event that the sport boasts of. These are thus personal opinions, restricted to remain between friends and fellow football aficionados. If I were so knowledgeable a fan, I ought to be aware of this, and if at all I didn't have light to shed on the tactics of teams playing for the day, would keep silent so that the experts can do justice to the questions put forward.

There again, many of the questions that the host raised before the experts were disconcerting and were more to do with issues that merely brushed the periphery of the sport, than anything of significance.  Including the one asked by the lady about the future of the football balls, once the event was done? 

That question was cringe-worthy. In her defence, while the question may have been intended for those really clueless about that fact; no one, intending to catch up with the World Cup, here and there, would have wanted to be caught out with such ignorance to their name.

She could have well framed it in a different way. But she could have also done without the question altogether. It wasn’t needed and nor was her excitement to ask it of Crouch and Silvestre. The broadcasters too perhaps felt its redundancy. Whatever the reason, she was conspicuously absent for the second day’s pre-match coverage proceedings. 

As was John Abraham, who was a huge letdown with his inability to separate the fan from the tactician superseding his claims of being a true-blue football enthusiast at the one panel where it mattered the most.

Dear Nole...

Dear Nole,

The world's seein’ you win 

Day-after-day,

Months on end,

Excellence personified

You’ve come to be...

Made choices

Classified priorities

Started to mature and scintillate...

Come a long way...

Swooning girls at your feet,

Guys inspired by your theatrics

There were Roger and Rafa afore,

Your name – the only chord that strikes now...

In the roulette known as tennis,

You are winning hands down

No need for splitting hairs there...

Yet, as this mire shrouds you

Skips a beat,

My heart does...

Jostling thoughts

Overwhelm me

Records within reach

Yet afar

Time to be kinder

Luck to go easy

I wish...

Not so you can trump,

Immortalised victories

Just so,

That you can fan out

Your valour and glories...

PS: Please check out my other articles at Sportskeeda 

The Grey Shaded Texture of the Indian Society

We Indians have a lot of things to say about racism and racist behaviour. Quite sensitive we are, when in television and print media, there emerge reports of how fellow Indians are abused – verbally and at times, even physically – in foreign countries. Elders, advice the youngsters aspiring to go abroad for higher studies not to even think about it; for them, it’s an anathema to go abroad because it would mean inviting upon oneself the horror of racism. 

But the irony is, back home here, these same people do the same thing. Not so obviously perhaps, but definitely subtly. Even here, in India, there’s racism – not on the basis of colour of the skin, but on the basis of castes and sects. 

There is a clear disambiguation of so-called upper castes and lower castes. How did they originate, one might ask? But the answers given are seemingly vague, with archaic rules and stipulations which shouldn’t hold relevance in the fast developing societal lanes of the country, but which still do. In the remote villages, there are still incidences of lower caste people being exploited, exempt from the most basic needs. 

A student may be most brilliant among his peers. But at the end of the day, societal sects don’t hesitate to tag his caste after his qualification and degree. To the external world, it doesn’t matter. But to certain people in India, educational qualifications tend to lose value if the caste is not the right one.

In the most orthodox families, even careers are based upon caste-based precedents. If one does contradict and opt for a newer vocation, then verbal subjugation starts to occur within the family itself with provocative ribbing surrounding him, no matter how much the individual may have otherwise achieved in his career.

Marriages are still conducted on the basis of caste system, arranged proudly by the families so to speak. While there are couples who do fall in love with each, caring nought about the caste system, and do end up getting married after their parents’ approval, tongues of the supposed near-and-dear ones don’t fail to wag commenting upon on how low the guy married, or vice versa. Such back-biting comments however are only visible in the bigger, metropolitan cities. In smaller townships and villages though, forsaking caste for love is, more often than not, punishable by death which is also used as an example to anyone else, liable to falling in love.

Of course, we don’t call ourselves racists. Because in our very eyes, we don't consider ourselves to be so. We are secular and believe in allowing people to be what they want to be, to do what they want to do and follow their path of dreams. The only thing is, we still are following the societal hierarchy given to us by our forefathers, who somehow believed that if someone was a farmer, he and all following generations of his should be farmers. And if someone was a scholar educated in the highest of educational treatises, he and all following generations of his should be scholars. 

The applicability of this rationale wasn’t wrong then, at a time when societal needs and wants were simpler. The present however is a different situation, with greater complexities surrounding the country and its people. And since we are wasting no time clamouring for equality, despite our different skin tones, in countries other than our own; isn’t it time that we start talking about equality right here, in India?

The 14-Crore Dilemma: To Have or To Be Held?

The ruckus about the seediness plaguing the core of the Indian Premier League suddenly seems to have been muted. Not because the detrimental issues have been sorted out, but because something far more significant has emerged out of the whole ‘player auction’ hoopla.

To be honest however, I would have to say that for most parts I was quite alright with the way the player auction panned out. The ludicrousness of players being auctioned off like prized assets did rankle, but then what’s more ludicrousness in an event which has epitomised the very essence of controversy, muck and mud all through, ever since it began?

Anyhow, my problem wasn’t with the auctioning itself but about the extraordinarily high amount paid by Royal Challengers Bangalore to purchase Yuvraj Singh. There again, let me be very clear. My problem wasn’t about Yuvraj Singh being bid with such a huge price tag, but about the team – and its hypocrisy – that raised the stakes for him in the first place, so to speak. 

While I wouldn’t have minded any other team paying the same amount – or even more – to acquire Yuvraj Singh, it really bothers me that of all franchisees, it was RCB who actually bought him. Considering the tale of sordid economic affairs that the team owner has left in his wake in the aviation sector – that includes not paying the staff their remuneration for months on end – his bid to get one of the star cricketers into his cricketing team for 14-crores looked quite preposterous. 

His bid, thus begets the question that if he does have 14-crores to spare why not spare some to cover the overdue remuneration of his staff who rightfully deserve their dues? Or is that too much to ask?

It’s not wrong to want the best in one’s sporting team especially, when the context of the team primarily involves monetary exchange more than anything else. But when one’s infamy precedes one’s stature, it is expected that one would exercise a bit of discretion rather than going full tilt at acquiring something – even if something, or someone as in this case, is the best out there. If only to avoid the wagging tongues – including mine – that have risen in the wake of this splurging. 

I don’t want to judge nor is it my place to. But looking back at the wreck that has been left behind in the lives of all the staffers who weren’t recompensed, I can’t help but think about the 14-crore investment over and over again. 

Despite the problems plaguing the IPL at its nub, there’s no denying that the player auctions were avid topics of discussions and opinions. And come the actual proceedings of the IPL, eyes will continue to be riveted towards the event regardless of the strong vociferations against it being raised presently. 

I can’t help but think about those staffers, many of whom who would have enjoyed watching the IPL matches in the good times, supporting RCB because of affiliated loyalty. And of the transformation to now, where, burdened by who-knows-how-many problems, thinking about affiliations would probably be the furthest thing on their mind.

When I say all these, it’s not with the intention of creating a sorry picture about them or making them objects of pity. But about emphasising the fact that spending money doesn’t always bring about an overwhelming satisfaction to everyone but rather brings about the glaring discrepancies in one’s fulfilling of one’s varied – but equally prominent – professional commitments. 

And because, I can't resist the imp in me that