Soccer crazy Kolkata set to greet an idol

For those of us coming from Kolkata, the soccer-crazy metropolis in eastern India, memories of how the city's loyalties would be divided between Brazil and Argentina during a World Cup are still fresh.

There are no ethnic reasons - it's just a case of being lovers of the Latin American flair that one associates with the style of the two superpowers.

In a country which languishes in the 140s of Fifa rankings, the fever pitch that football's showpiece drums up every four years in that city has to be seen to be believed. Portraits of a Ronaldinho or Messi stare at you from dark, dank walls inside the most serpentine of lanes, flags of these countries are often used as buntings while huddles form before portable TV sets at the innocuous of street corners when the games are on.

Pele, who visited the city for an exhibition match in 1977, now looks a slightly remote figure because of the generation gap, but Maradona is still loved. And one shudders to think the hysteria that will be whipped up when the Argentine legend steps into the city tomorrow for a whistle-stop visit.

The new coach of the Argentine team is scheduled to be present at a foundation stone laying ceremony at an ambitious project called the Indian Football School. He will also visit the Mother House - the home of Mother Teresa and Missionaries of Charity.

From all accounts, he will be ferried from his hotel to the Salt Lake Stadium in a transparent fibreglass bus for the benefit of the fans to be the guest of honour in an exhibition match.

Kolkata's brush with soccer legends had been few and far between - Pele and Oliver Kahn in recent times while the likes of Eusebio and Roger Milla visited in the early Nineties. Kahn, who by chance happened to make his last appearance on a football pitch there, was apparently overwhelmed by a turnout of nearly 130,000 at the Salt Lake Stadium.

Let's hope the city's date with soccer's biggest maverick passes off without a hitch!