Midnight Moments of Magical Realism

I woke up from a week of fever which ran alongside the soccer fever injecting the effect of magical realism on a mind which was slipping between sleep and sense to discover the clash of the Latin giants; Brazil against Chile, Columbia against Uruguay!

Borrowing from perhaps the most voracious reader among soccer stars, who grew up on Chekhov and Dostoevsky, and conceded before a match with Italy, that his team would have been no match for Dante, Petrarch and Leopardi; Columbia will go past Uruguay on the shoulders of the Master of Macondo.

And Brazil would be child's game for Chile, had it been the game of magic with words! Neruda, Donoso, Bolano, Allende and also Miguel Littin, the real life hero of Marquez!

Speaking of stopping spot kicks, running around a stadium he had stunned to silence, taking a leaf out of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Sergio Goycochea felt like a child, having saved a penalty from Super Mario in his home town, Lima!

Having sent the ball past the keeper for his second goal in the Federation Cup finals, Christiano Junior went on to collide with the goal keeper, staggered away, fell to ground and quietly slipped out of life in a match his team went on to win by two goals to nil!

As she 'closed her eyes' to the incoming corner kick on the 117th minute of the world cup finals, against the physically superior Americans seeking their 3rd World title, Homare Sawa was lifting her game by the notches her male Asian counterparts can not dream of in another "one hundred years of toil"! VIDEO

Inspired by his black commander, as Alcides Ghiggia unleashed a thundering left footer, the Maracanazo, it had "the same dramatic pattern… the same movement… the same precision of an unstoppable trajectory…. and even the same motion for the dust that was stirred up, in the assassination of a President, more than a decade later, on the northern part of Americas!"

Back to that bibliophile wearing soccer boots, the image of the host captain steaming around the stadium shouting "where is the police? where is the bloody police?" even as the crowds fought pitched battles on the stands, and finally finding a police man brutally caning a fallen fan, running up and landing a karate kick, right on the face of the officer and thus officially 'kicking off' the Balkan War, Europe's nastiest since the two world wars. Yes, there he was! prepared to risk his life, his career, and everything that fame could have brought, right in front of the most brutal of the future Balkan warlords!

The General might have nodded in approval from his labyrinth!

And to conclude, in spite of their "literary" inferiority, the Croatians edged out the Italians on field! Hope the Brazilians emulate the feet to overcome the resurgent Chileans in their do or die battle.

Why Africa may Pardon La Celeste?

As Africa’s first soccer world cup is coming to the final stages, there is one team that carries the ire of the host continent, Uruguay. Being the last of the Latin Americans to qualify, no one had foreseen the team advancing this far. But the record books also tell us that they are one of the most successful national teams in soccer history with 18 major titles, one less than Argentina and two ahead of Brazil! Their success is extraordinary because of the fact that the nation has a population below 3.5 million. Uruguay is the smallest country to have won a World Cup. In fact, only six nations with a lesser population have ever made it to any soccer World Cup. Uruguay is also the smallest nation to win Olympic gold medals in any team sport. Los Charrúas was the team that originally introduced the Latin American flair to the soccer world. Their style of play, full of short passes and movement, invention and wizardry and much more attractive than the then prevalent muscular style fetched them the Olympic gold medals in the 1924 and 1928. And given the responsibility to organize the first World Cup in 1930, the tiny nation had worked hard to ensure its success and also became the winners of the inaugural edition of soccer’s ultimate prize.

In the early years of the last century Uruguay became perhaps the world’s first welfare state and had the most advanced social legislation of the time. This made it much easier for football to move down the social ladder from the elites to the poor immigrants from Italy and Spain and to the descendants of Africans brought in as slaves. Thus the national team was able to draw on the potential of all of its citizens that gave them early prominence in world football. Uruguay’s first major triumph in the inaugural edition of the Copa America in 1916 had paved the way for football’s growth into an undisputed global game of the masses. The star of that campaign was Isabelino Gradin, whose very presence in the team had raised the objections of other teams. Gradin and his team-mate Juan Delgado were black and Uruguay was accused of playing with Africans. But Uruguay strongly argued that they were Uruguayans and thus had every right to represent their national team. An important victory was won for the popularization of the sport and strangely the lead was taken by the country with a minuscule black population. On the other side of the border Brazil had imported millions of black slaves, whose descendents were finding it hard to rise socially, including on the football field. When the next tournament was held in Brazil, the inspirational presence of Gradin on the field of Brazil’s most aristocratic club was loudly cheered by the local blacks who could see themselves in him. The man in the street took to soccer and the rest is history. Five years later when Uruguay took Paris by storm, decimating the formidable European teams, José Andrade was their star. Record books mention him as the first black player to play in Olympic football.

However Uruguay’s ultimate coup de grace for the Brazilian elite had come in 1950, the only time Brazil hosted the soccer’s biggest showpiece. The largest crowd the world has ever seen in a world cup match, more than 200000 people, had thronged the Maracana stadium as the nation awaited the formality. Brazil needed only a draw and was the overwhelming favorites against their tiny Latin American neighbors. They had annihilated every opponent on the way. With the result a foregone conclusion, members of Uruguay’s national FA reportedly asked the team to do what they could to avoid losing by six goals. “Four is acceptable,” they are believed to have said. In Uruguay’s locker room in the moments prior to the match, Coach Juan López informed his team that their best chance of surviving the powerful offensive line of Brazil would be adopting a defensive strategy. But one man was fuming as everybody was writing his team off. After the coach had left, Obdulio Varela, Uruguay’s Captain stood up and delivered perhaps the most inspirational speech ever heard in a soccer locker room. “Juancito is a good man”, he began by referring to the coach, “but today, he is wrong. If we play defensively against Brazil, our fate will be no different from others…” Lining up in the tunnel waiting to step out in front of an intimidating, world record crowd of 200000 Brazilians, which was roughly 10% of Uruguay’s entire population, the Captain had one last message for his team. “Put all those people out of your minds, don’t look up. The ones outside are made out of wood, those people don’t count. The game is played down there on the pitch and if we win, nothing’s going to happen, just as it’s never happened before.”

The skipper’s motivational words appeared to do the trick, with Uruguay holding the hosts goalless in the first half; the Captain himself marshaling the defense and choking the life out of the famed and feted Brazilian frontline. But the Brazilians struck early in the second half, sending the crowd into deafening frenzy. The astute skipper immediately sensed the drooping shoulders and dropping morale and quickly realized that if something is not done immediately, the Brazilians were going to ambush his side in no time. What followed was sheer drama. In the words of Uruguay’s goalkeeper of that historic match; “When they scored, Varela ran 30 yards to get hold of the ball and argue with the referee about a non-existent offside!” Varela explained the reasons behind his curious behavior later. “I knew they would go on and thrash my team if we didn’t cool the game down. All I wanted to do was delay the restart. I took the discussion as far as it would go, to the point that they had to get an interpreter so that I could talk to the referee. The stadium fell silent and that’s when I knew we could win the game.” Taking the ball to the center of the field, he shouted to his men in his commanding voice; “Boys, now it’s time to win! Let’s win the match from here”.

The skipper straight away took control of the midfield and Uruguay suddenly started growing in confidence. What followed went exactly as the cunning Varela had planned. Juan Schiaffino and Alcides Ghiggia scored late goals from the moves initiated by the skipper from the midfield to turn the game around and silence the masses. Against all the odds, the smallest nation to win the World Cup had delayed the coronation of the soccer emperors.

However, more significantly, in the very first world cup after the proponent-in-chief of the Aryan superiority theory blew his brains out in a Berlin bunker, the tactical genius of a black commander had inspired his army of suspect soldiers to an improbable victory in its war against a soccer super power. Obdulio Varela, nicknamed “El Negro Jefe” or the Black Chief due to his dominant personality and commanding presence in the field became the first and only Black Captain to lift the soccer world cup in the 20th century. More than a decade before Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”, Uruguay had been the first non-African soccer team to have a black Captain. And I hope that should be reason enough for Africa to pardon 'La Celeste' and cheer them for their resurrection.

The Return of Sándor Kocsis!

Sándor Kocsis made an unexpected return to memory on a cold Friday evening this past fortnight; dragging it back by a couple of decades- to the eventful school days, to be precise. The name may not ring a bell even in the minds of diehard soccer aficionados of the day. Yet for one full fortnight 22 years ago, it had remained the most sought after for a gang of restless, information hungry school boys. Diego Maradona and the God were taking Mexico by storm. The reverberations of the Mexican wave they had triggered crossed the oceans and continents reaching even the remotest corners of the world. No wonder then that it had taken in the gang of star struck, soccer crazy kids just stepping into their teens.

They rarely got to watch a movie in a theater, never went to see soccer in the stadium nor did they get to see the live cricket action on TV. Yet they churned out screenplays by the dozen, of the movies they had never seen, gave ball by ball account of the cricket matches they had not been to, or eulogized the heroes in the wars they hadn’t witnessed; almost as if they were right at the hot seat seeing all the action by themselves. They impeccably recreated, through words and gestures, the sublime poetry of a “Rolls Royce” on his long rhythmic run to the wicket, or the supreme artistry in the execution of a Vishy square cut, or the meandering runs of a “Little Bird”, full of feints and shimmies leaving the best defenders infuriated or the “filthy” one-handed backhand from the magic wand of that “rebel with a cause” and of course his tantrums, each of which introduced the awe-struck audience to the art of genius in the field of action. As their imagination took wings, weaving the fascinating web of facts, fiction and fairy tales, the stars from different eras crossed swords, years before computer simulation actually allowed some of it, without people even noticing it. They were not liars, but great imaginers, adept at the art of weaving the web of tales, master story tellers and unfailing performers never short of an apt word or a suitable gesture at capturing the real thrill of the moment.

They had invented games too, to kill time at free hours. It was during one such game that Sándor Kocsis first descended in their midst. The word game they used to play around that WC season in ’86 required the contestants to give the name of a sportsperson starting with the first letter in the second name of the previously named star. When some one spelt out Slobodan Zivojinovic, a hush prevailed for a brief while. And then one of the contestants came up with the name Zandor Koksis. “Liar, liar” up went the alert crowd, very much aware of the gang’s ability to pluck names out of thin air. “There never was a sports man by that name”; the protests were vociferous and the pleas that there was a Hungarian soccer star by that name fell on deaf ears and was shouted down, al beit with a demand for evidence and a bet without the bookies.

Internet was not heard of, Google was not even an idea, yet they took it as a challenge and spent a whole day in the public library scrolling through the dusty back volumes of Sport Star and came up with the issue containing the mention of soccer star Sándor Kocsis. They had to give up their claim and lost a couple of sharpeners, yet they were greatly pleased to discover that he was no ordinary soccer player but a legend who had won the golden boot in ’54, scoring 11 goals, and the first player to score two hat tricks in a World Cup. He was the lesser known of the potent duo that formed the lethal striking force of the Mighty Magyars, arguably the most brilliant international team in soccer history.

Gradually he faded from memory, not figuring in any further stories, due part in the lack of awareness among the audience and part in the difficulty in pronouncing the name. He never came back, even in the innumerable quizzes or the discussions on greatness around soccer seasons, dominated by Pele, Pushkas, di Stefano, or Maradona. Nor did the name come up during the poignant moments of describing tragic heroes dominated by the Busby babes and Duncan Edwards¹, Garrincha² or George Best³. He was never praised alongside the prolific scorers like Pele, Mueller, Fontaine and Rolando. He was missing among the stars of yesteryears being felicitated at the subsequent editions of the world cup. He had vanished altogether from our soccer discussions which used to peak around WCs or the Euros.

Then suddenly, one day this past fortnight, he made a dramatic comeback through an article on the web, reviving fond memories of those old school day discussions. I turned curious and clicked away on the information, now available at my finger tips and discovered nearly 23 years from the game session during that unengaged Social Science period at school that Sándor Kocsis was indeed no ordinary soccer player, but a legend, in fact, statistically speaking, the most prolific striker the world has ever seen in the international game. He had scored 75 goals in 68 matches for Hungary at a phenomenal 1.103 goal/game, ahead of Gerd Mueller, the only other player with a goal a game average among players with a long international career. His partner and Captain Ferenc Puskás had kicked in 3^rd in the list with 84 goals in 85 matches. He was also the most successful match winner among the international game’s greatest goal scorers, with an astounding 84.5% of his goals coming in winning causes, more than 4% clear off Pushkas, Pele, Ronaldo and Mueller. His record 2.2 goal/game in a single World Cup finals competition is still standing. Kocsis was also one of the earliest defectors from the communist block to the Western Europe when he moved to Spain where he represented FC Barcelona and he also finds mention in a poll ranking the greatest Barca players in history along side Cryuff, Ronaldinho, Maradona and Messi, in spite of having played for them way back in the 60’s. On his retirement as a player in 1966, he continued with the club as its coach. But his return to memory was through one list that we had missed out. The article was found on the sidelines on the report on a galaxy of German stars looking on as the coffin of colleague Robert Enke was being lowered to be near his two year old daughter’s. Those dusty back volumes in the Public Library didn’t tell us more than 2 decades ago that Sándor Kocsis also headed the list of soccer stars who had taken their own lives. His life and career had come to a standstill when he was diagnosed with leukemia and even as he was undergoing treatment, he was found to suffer from stomach cancer. And it was through the fourth floor window of the hospital in Barcelona where he was undergoing treatment that the Magnificent Magyar had disappeared on July 22 1979, aged 49.

Soccer, unlike Cricket, is not a statistician’s game. Sándor Kocsis, it is said, was a magnificent finisher, very strong, great at positioning and most of all brilliant in battles on air. Even as another WC season triggers debates, discussions and speculations; there is, it appears, no current soccer player who is anywhere near the Golden Head’s Bradmanesque strike rate. And on those terms, Sándor Peter Kocsis will continue to remain the greatest striker in the international game’s history for a long time to come.

1. “What time is the kick off against Wolves, Jimmy? I mustn't miss that match”

2. “who lived in the woods had bent legs who was totally unmarkable and who could dribble like the devil”

3. “Don't die like me”