Yes-yes, it’s Argies the whole way!

A whole new generation was introduced to the beautiful game of football. Thanks to the FIFA World Cup 86, the champ Argentina, and many thanks to Diego Armando Maradona!

As an 8 year old kid, eyes would be glued to the television set to watch the men in light blue and white stripes playing. My scrapbooks were filled with the colorful pictures of players of the Argentinean team.  Maradona took the lions share, followed by Burruchaga, Jorge Valdano, Nery Pumpido, and even coach Carlos Bilardo.

Argentina’s performance in the world cup like their star Maradona might have been mercurial, but the love and support showered to the country (as well as the individual) is unconditional. Majority supports Argentina, followed closely by Brazil, and then comes the European countries.

Little history
 

There’s a history of why the football-frenzy Bongs (and the Malyali’s to a greater extent supports Argentina. The Argentina team under the stewardship of Carlos Bilardo took part 1984 edition of Nehru Cup held at Kolkata. Under the tutelage of great Yugoslav coach Ciric Milovan, India played their best ever football against Argentina. The Indian brigade played their hearts out; conceded the only goal in the concluding moments of the match.

Apparently, it was the same team that formed the nucleus of the successful World Cup campaign in 1986. The Argentina team in the 1984 Nehru Cup had World Cuppers like Jorge Luis Burruchaga, Neri Pompidou, and Sergio Batista.


Maradona as a demi-god
 

He might have been making news for all wrong reasons since the 1990 FIFA World Cup, but people just love him! 

Maradona himself had a taste of it when he visited Kolkata in the late 2008.

Few things attributes to this huge popularity

• Speaks his mind, never frightened of calling spade a spade.
• Loves to take challenges, suits his personality. Otherwise, who will dare to take the coaching assignment?

His player selection has been erratic, made several mistakes, but who cares – Argentina has made it to the world cup at South Africa!
I’ve seen the player Maradona winning the world cup for Argentina, and now I want the coach Maradona to lift it again for Argentina.

Go Maradona, go Lio Messi, and go-go MessiDona!

Diego chants Saraswati vandana

KSFA announces squad for Manindra Dutta Roy Trophy

The Karnataka State Football Association (KSFA) announced their squad for the Manindra Dutta Roy Trophy, the 19th U-21 National Football Championship.

This tournament will be played in Gurgaon, Haryana from February 11 to 21. Karnataka is grouped in Cluster I, they will play their first match against Rajasthan on February 13 and next match against Punjab on February 15.

Early last month, the state association conducted a coaching-cum-selection camp in Bangalore. The state association officials are pinning high hopes on this team, especially, after winning the recently-concluded Dr. BC Roy Trophy, the U-19 National Football Championship.

Players list:

• R Dayalan (ADE)
• Biman Nandi (ASC Boys)
• S Vinodh Kumar (HAL)
• Clement Anthony (Southern Blues)
• Rakesh Babu (KSP)
• S Kiran Kumar (Bangalore Mars)
• Ramesh (BEML)
• Madhu Karan (SAI)
• Rajesh (Bangalore Mars)
• Karthigayan (HAL)
• Don Bosco (BEML)
• Akram (Davangere District)
• Sanoj (SAI)
• R Kiran Kumar (KSP)
• Lokesh C (Vinayaka)
• Gopi (Captain) (HAL)
• Karunakaran (ASC)
• Kewal Lama R (ADE)
• Deepak Kumar (Government Press)
• V Vinodh Kumar (RWF)
• Abhilash (Mysore District)

Officials:

• Imtiaz Ahmed, Manager
• C Ravi Kumar, Chief Coach
• Shantha Kumar, Coach

Dowlath Khan Trophy kicks-off from Friday

Bangalore District Football Association (BDFA) is organizing Dowlath Khan Trophy, a knock-out tournament for the C-division teams.

One of the oldest football tournaments of the Karnataka state, Dowlath Khan Trophy is revived by the BDFA. Record numbers of 38 BDFA C-division teams are participating in this tournament and will be played on a knock-out format.

Duration of each match will be 70 minutes (35+10+35). When a match ends in a draw in the regulation time, no extra-time will be played, and the match will go straight to the tie-breaker. All the games will be played at the Bangalore Football Stadium.

The association expressed satisfaction with the number of teams coming out to play such tournaments. They feel that organizing such tournaments should help the player’s caliber and their talent will be displayed, which will ultimately help the players as well as the teams scouting for budding talents.

In the first match of the tournament on Friday, February 12, 1.30 pm, Bangalore Blues takes on Young Gems. Later, Mohd. Sporting, Bangalore will play against Young Blues.

B for Bedi-sm

Spin great Bishen Singh Bedi simply speaks his mind.

Here’s the latest:

Offie, Harbhajan Singh and leggie, Pragyan Ojha are playing with either full or three-fourth sleeves on. bedi questions, “why aren’t they playing with half-sleeve shirt?” He grins with a question-mark like expression!

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yekbux5

Few years back, he compared Muralitharan’s bowling action with a javelin thrower. In the cricketing context, He has expressed his reservation with the word doosra.

This is Bedi’s holistic take on doosra:

Q: What is doosra?
Bedi: The other man in a women’s life is doosra. The other woman in a man’s life is doosri. So basically doosra is unethical, immoral, and illegal.

Albeit lucid and not disjointed!