Pele, and why Brazilian flags are still painted on Kolkata walls
If you’re a visitor or tourist to Kolkata, one of the strangest things you might experience in the city is random walls of city streets adorned with yellow and blue and green, depicting Brazilian flags. While this might make sense in the international football season or could explain the vigor of a few superfans, the massive abundance of Brazil (and Argentina) flags painted on Kolkata walls might beg the question: why? Why are Brazilian flags so very common (and perhaps more common than Indian flags on walls, though a meticulous census-taker might disprove me here) on the walls of a city all the way across the world? A short answer to this question can be found in one word, in one name: Pele.
Though India does not have much renown in world football and while Indian fans today don’t celebrate Indian football much beyond striker Sunil Chhetri’s high position in the list of international goalscorers, Kolkata and Bengal have contributed much to the game in India. The oldest football league in Asia, the Calcutta Football League, was started in 1898. The league contained two of the nations’ oldest football teams — Mohun Bagan FC and Mohammedan Sporting Club. North Kolkata’s Mohun Bagan Football Club’s famous 1911 win in the IFA Shield over the East Yorkshire regiment made them the first Indian team to beat British opposition to win the shield. A few years later, the birth of East Bengal FC in 1920 gave rise to the Kolkata Derby being contested with Mohun Bagan, the oldest local rivalry in Asian football which boasts the second-highest ever attendance at a football game with over 131,000 people watching their 1997 Fed Cup semi final at the Salt Lake Stadium. It was here that Amal Dutta’s application of Johan Cryuff’s famous 3–4–3 Diamond formation wowed the nation and saw Mohun Bagan play delicious football on the way to the trophy. The city has gifted India with some of the nation’s most renowned footballers of the past, such as Biswajit Bhattacharya, Sisir Ghosh, Subrata Bhattacharya (more on him later), PK Banerjee, Sailen Manna and Chuni Goswami, to name a few. More recently, Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) won the Inaugual Indian Super League in 2014, and remains the most successful team in the league with three titles to date.
But, to explain the Brazilian flags adorned on Kolkata walls, we must cast our minds back to a sunny day in September 1977 when the great Pele, in the final year of a professional career that saw him lift the World Cup three times, brought his New York Cosmos team to a football-crazy Kolkata. On the agenda, a football match: the legendary New York Cosmos, which boasted within it ranks World Cup-winning captain Carlos Alberto and Italian Giorgio Chinaglia alongside the great Pele, against the Indian giant Mohun Bagan.
Pele’s arrival in Kolkata caused a frenzy. People gathered in the lakhs and thousands at the airport and at his hotel to catch a glimpse of the living legend of football. The Anandabazar Patrika reported that “Not merely as a king, but Kolkata has welcomed Pelé like a victorious emperor.” About the actual game, there was a scare that overnight rains would render the field beneath Pele’s standard and that he would refuse to play out of fear of injury, but Pele did not disappoint the 80,000 strong crowd. The visitors took the lead in the 17th minute but the home side pegged them back within 90 seconds and then took a shock lead with just over half an hour played. Though Mohun Bagan took the lead with them into half-time, a second half penalty to Cosmos levelled the score again, as the game finished 2–2. In the pouring Kolkata rain, the iconic Brazilian glided across the field with his trademark sombrero flicks and elasticos mesmerizing both opponents and fans alike. Though Pele found himself well-watched and tightly marked by a diligent Subrata Bhattacharya, a performance that earned the Indian legend the moniker of “the man who stopped Pele”, the artistry and brilliance he displayed wowed the capacity crowd. The 2–2 draw earned Mohun Bagan attention and praise all over the world but while they celebrated the resilience and performance of their own, the Kolkata faithful fell in love with Pele and the beautiful game that much more.
On 25th September 1977 began a love affair between one of the oldest cities and sport-cultures in India and a South American footballing nation, an affair that transcended the geographical boundaries through airwaves and television, an affair that continues to this day. Though subsequent events like São Paolo FC’s visits to Kolkata in 1984 and 1989, the 1982 World Cup final featuring Brazil being the first ever football match to be the first global sporting event ever to be telecast live in India, and the skills and flicks of future magicians like Ronaldo Nazario, Ronaldinho, Zico, Rivaldo and many more, fueled Kolkata’s love for Joga Bonito, Kolkata will never forget its first Brazilian love in Pele. Today as Pele leaves the world surrounded by his family in Sao Paulo, a city all the way across the world wakes up into tears and wistful smiles as it remembers the man, the myth, the legend.
