Comments on: Real men do it barefoot

By: Gabs

Gabs — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:22:22 +0000

There s already a film on the legacy of Mohun Bagan…It’s a Bengali film Egaro which means 11

By: romeo86

romeo86 — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:56:59 +0000

Somebody is proud of USA because of that stupid goal? Did you see that game? Have you ever watched football or are you one of those people that get the football fever during world cup. USA has a good goalie though, I will give you that. Mohun Bagan rocks, I always remember golmaal when somebody mentions mohun bagan. ( ram prasad and lucky)

By: pj

pj — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:29:26 +0000

It's "MohUn" not "MohAn".

(in your link to wikipedia.)

By: Yoga Fire

Yoga Fire — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:25:17 +0000

For some reason Europeans and Americans have hangups about bare feet. As if our toes were delicate wisps that would evaporate away if exposed to the air for too long. It doesn't make sense. But for our friends in the motherland, I think I have a solution to their problem.

By: Josekutty

Josekutty — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:37:26 +0000

Years ago, it wasn’t an uncommon sight in Kerala to see kids playing barefoot soccer with hayballs.

By: LinZi

LinZi — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:10:29 +0000

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing this bit of history.

By: Baichung

Baichung — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:34:48 +0000

apple hasn't heard of Baichung Bhutia.

By: anon

anon — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:18:36 +0000

India won the Asian Games in 1951 and 1962 -- in the second case, beating South Korea 2-1 in the final. As late as 1970, it won the bronze medal in the Asian Games. So, by Asian, though not world standards, India was roughly competitive until the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, by the mid 1970s, India was not competitive even by Asian standards. The gulf can be seen by India's 7-1 thrashing at the hands of China in the 1974 Asian Games in Teheran. Probably, the narrower base of Football (as opposed to Cricket) coupled with the poor management of the sport (by the All India Football Federation) meant that India steadily fell behind and was simply unable to keep up.

Since you are into digging up football related "facts" in India, you might want to do a feature on the Bengali writer and sports journalist Moti Nandi who died early this year. He was good enough (as a writer) to win the Sahitya Academy award. More to the point, he was known for his two football-based novellas: Striker and Stopper both written in the 1970s. You can find a review of them here. Incidentally, Striker seems to have been made into a (Bengali?) movie.

By: Pravin

Pravin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:20:07 +0000

Bengal and Kerala are bigger than quite a few of the football playing nations. Wonder why those states alone cant supply enough quality players to field a decent team even if you ignore the rest of India.

I honestly fell asleep in the middle of the England USA game. At least we know we have the better goalie than England.

By: Yoga Fire

Yoga Fire — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:35:04 +0000

US today had a draw with UK which I am sure has led to a bout of depression in the Brits while the average American is barely aware of the World Cup (ESPN's relentless hyping notwithstanding)

Hey. I was as pro-America as one could get, but there was no honor in this game today. The entire game was played on our side of the field and the one goal we scored was blind luck and utter incompetence on the part of the British goalie. Let's not get too cocky here.