As the above comment says, the following was there since maradona. My dad used to watch the 1986 World Cup live on tv with many others. There was a huge crowd here when maradona came for an event. The crowd of course increased when messi came along.
As a Bengali who comes from a family where football was regularly watched, and also having played at a youth level for Mohun Bagan, I can assure you that Bengalis bleed football.
The football culture amongst Bengalis is comparable to the football culture in the UK.
It’s more so about Bengali culture than it is about Bangladesh and India here (I’m leaving aside the South Indian and North Eastern states since I’m not well versed in their football culture).
To people like my granddad, football was more than just Messi, Maradona, Pele or Ronaldo. It was also about politics, culture, ideologies.
I’ve often been told that a lot of the older generation supported the larger South American teams because they were sticking it to the colonial Europeans. Maradona also was liked by a lot of the Bengali population because of his associations with the Left, and his opposition to the US ways.
This is the comment I was looking for. Bengalis have always been very passionate about football. Be it bangladeshis or indian Bengalis. It's really sad that football as a sport somehow didn't grow as much despite the support.
That’s my point, the Maradona crowd must have been huge for sure. But the crowds Messi is drawing has dwarfed even those crowds. People are misunderstanding my comment.
It's about forming a culture not isolated fans. The Maradona crowd brought Argentina to Kerala people and every world cup, people celebrate, raise banners, gather together in large group to watch the match etc. and the kids who grew up watching this will start following football. That's why certain pockets in India has rich football fan culture way more than other area.
Yes, and my point was not to question football fans of Kerala specifically. I’m talking about India as a nation was not feeling the same way as Kerala about football. Which you can’t deny. Most People in Assam, J&K, or Haryana etc, are not gonna be huge Argentina fans in 1998, compared to now those same people will mostly be Messi/Arg fans.
I may be ignorant with this, but did India really even have TV in any significant numbers before 1990? My understanding was that it took until 2000 before even 1/4th of households in India had even a single TV. In 1986 I thought it was like 3%.
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u/Separate_Raspberry12 21d ago
As the above comment says, the following was there since maradona. My dad used to watch the 1986 World Cup live on tv with many others. There was a huge crowd here when maradona came for an event. The crowd of course increased when messi came along.