‘How we kept God of Football quiet in Kolkata’

Pradip Choudhury

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Growing up, we never got to see Pele play at a World Cup, for TV hadn’t happened then. Most of us would read match reports, line by line, to try to know the God of Football. Sometime in the 1970s, we got lucky as the national channel broadcasted a few documentaries, one of which featured Pele. Only then could we understand his greatness.

Later, in 1977, I was fortunate enough to see him play — from up close! There were many great players in that Mohun Bagan team, and I was the centre back that year. The opportunity to play against him was a dream come true. Forty-five years later, I still remember how he was looking and walking that day — but I simply cannot explain that feeling!

When we Mohun Bagan players got to know that Pele was to play an exhibition match against us with his New York Cosmos team, we were worried. The Cosmos team had World Cup players — other than Pele, there were Carlos Alberto and Italian Giorgio Chinaglia. We thought we were up against it. Only days previously, we had lost to East Bengal and were to play them again in the IFA Shield final three days after the Cosmos exhibition match. Our plan was very simple — to not get beaten by a huge margin, as it would upset our fans, and also demoralise the team before the crucial match against East Bengal.

I and Gautam Sarkar were given specific tasks by our coach, PK Banerjee. Gautam was to track Pele in the Cosmos half and it was my job to mark him in our half. I can now say that we kept the great man in control for much of the time. Everybody remembers the score — 2-2 — but a lot happened during the game.

The Eden Gardens pitch was unplayable. It was not a football pitch, in any case. It rained continuously for three days before the match. The conditions were terrible. The organisers used sand to make the playing surface better, but even then it was not good. The conditions were so bad that Pele almost pulled out. His insurers had asked him to not play at all. But the great man still played.

I saw him receive and pass the ball from close. One time he got his body between me and the ball, with his back against me — what skills! Though we knew this was not the prime Pele, he had the touch and class. I remember once he chested the ball down while in air and even before he landed, both his legs were ready to do the magic — the left leg was to land, the right was arched to shoot. I had never seen these things before. The other thing I vividly remember is that he had a one-on-one situation against our goalkeeper, Shivaji Banerjee. Pele had the chance to score but in doing so, he could have injured Shivaji. Instead of going for a goal, he jumped over Shivaji and in doing so, he showed his greatness.

The football was not that eye-pleasing but they got the first goal through Carlos Alberto and all of a sudden, we had to leave our defensive mindset and play. We scored the equaliser through Shyam Thapa and then got the lead through Akbar. We could see the Cosmos players were taking it easy, and I think some were worried about injuries. But now that they were losing against an Indian club side, they started to play strongly again. They got the equaliser after a controversial penalty. Safe to say, the match ended on a happy note for both teams.

Later that night, we all went to see him at his hotel. He was very polite and obliged us by posing for photographs. Talking with him was a big problem, for he could express only four things in English — ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘do this’ and ‘do that’. The rest was all Portuguese! So I find it funny when many people claim that ‘Pele said this to me’ or ‘Pele suggested this to me’. All those claims are rubbish.

This match against Pele made us stars outside our own country as well. The same year, the Indian team went to Zambia and I was the captain. When we landed there, we saw a lot of enthusiastic fans waiting for us at the airport — they had come to see the Indians who stopped Pele! They thought we were a good team because of how we played against The Man.

There will be no one like him ever.

The writer, a former Indian football team captain, was part of the Mohun Bagan team that played against New York Cosmos in Kolkata in 1977

As told to Vinayak Padmadeo