As I was leaving Kolkata last week after annual vacation, the one parting shot that I heard the most from my friends and former colleagues was not the customary see-you-soon, but: "Oh, few more days and you could have watched Messi."

Well, I didn't have the heart to tell them that I had the opportunity to witness the football hero in flesh and blood during Barcelona's visit to Abu Dhabi a few years back for the Club World Cup, for nothing would have matched the air of anticipation that I saw building up in the soccer-crazy metropolis during August. One only hopes that it all passes off without any major hitches at that cauldron called Salt Lake Stadium Friday.

The little magician from Maradona's country is yet to win a World Cup on his own, while his indifferent form in the last Copa America also came in for a fair bit of rap from his countrymen and critics.

Still, his mesmerising skills, which have helped Barcelona scale one peak after the other over the last five years, has left little doubt as to who the greatest footballer of this generation is.

However, if Kolkata has turned into a mini-Argentina — as my friends from the sports media there says — the credit for that goes to a man who has made Dubai his home, albeit for now. No prizes for guessing, it was the Maradona magic in that 1986 World Cup which first sowed the seeds of divided loyalties among soccer fans of that city — which till then had a clear ‘bias' towards Brazil.

For those of us growing up in the 1980s, the introduction of a live telecast of the Fifa World Cup from the previous edition was a real eye-opener. It was on a night of deluge in the city when I, along with a group of friends, became ‘converts' for life when the Argentine number ten waded past six England players with that solo run and scored one of the most breathtaking goals in the tournament's history.

For us, Maradona was always right — from his theatrics to earn freekicks and even the percentage of football he played in Italia 1990. As he stood sobbing after Andreas Brehme's penalty put paid to his hopes of making it two World Cups in a row after the final, we also had lumps in our throats.

It's only natural that in Messi, the football lovers of the world (of which my city only forms a microcosm) see a natural successor of Maradona. However, in order to be so, the Barca icon has to win the World Cup first. And Messi possibly has only one chance left in about three years' time.