The first time I watched the World Cup on TV, wide-eyed, was in 1974, a few months after arriving as a greenhorn in Paris. That match was happening in Germany. I?d only experienced the transistor radio earlier, the spectacular voices of commentators Ajayda, Kamalda and Pushpenda. They were so good that without being in any football stadium we could visualise a match with Kolkata teams like East Bengal, Mohan Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting among others.

Being Bengali football freaks, even without electronic media, we?d felt very close to the World Cup in those days. Brazil was almost a part of the Bengal team where Pele, at 17 years, 239 days, won the World Cup for his country in 1958. I recall a wounded Pele could not finish the tournament in 1962. In 1966, brutal fouling on Pele by Bulgarian and Portuguese defenders obliged Pele to continue with a limping leg as substitutes were not allowed at that time. The greatest footballer of all time, Pele played in four World Cup tournaments, thrice bringing home the Cup for Brazil, including in 1970. Argentina?s Diego Maradona is as big a world football icon, sharing the FIFA Player of the Century Award with Pele. Maradona made his full international debut at age 16 and played in four World Cups too, from 1982 to 1994.

Cite Universitie in Paris, where Greek House director Mr Yourgoulis allowed me hostel accommodation because of my parallel studies in Ecole des Beaux Arts while working as a sweeper, is where that black&white TV set mesmerised me. I?m sure today?s young generation can never understand the exhilaration of sitting in front of it, watching our sports idols enact their magic. I?d grab a chair in the small table tennis lounge-cum-TV room an hour before the match. I could not speak French then so had to gauge everything, including the incredible moves of Beckenbaur and Muller. I got adept at peppering my fervour using Greek swear words like malacca and putanis. The word ralenti often occurred so I asked the only other Indian student who?d made me understand he speaks very good French. He said ralenti is another discipline like penalty. I believed him, but discovered by the 1978 World Cup that ralenti means slow motion in French.

To implement a global project I had gone to Argentina in 1994. Much to the chagrin of my client, Elizabeth, I?d wander into unauthorised ?dangerous? Buenos Aires slums to experience life and social trends. I found that companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola had sponsored good football grounds to encourage slum children to become heroes. Indeed, from a tall block of buildings with high crime rate comes Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez who had played street football in these ?no go? areas as a child, and is now part of the Argentina team.

At that time, as I watched young boys practice football, others quarreling, one even had a gun, I remember thinking how terrific these sophisticated sports arrangements were. This crumbling slum had murky streets where even emergency services often refused to enter. In our poor village in Bengal we could never think of such sports facilities or of anybody from our village becoming a world famous football player. Yet even football champion Maradona, currently Argentina team?s coach, was raised in a poor family living in a Buenos Aires shanty town. When 10 years old, he was spotted by a talent scout.

After quitting the slums, Elizabeth and I went to a coffee shop of a national football ground. A gang of boisterous people were gesticulating wildly about an imminent major local football match in the city starring Boca Juniors verses River Plate. I absolutely wanted to join their table-talk. Being a sophisticated French woman, Elizabeth was getting angry but I explained that the food company they acquired had its roots here so its transformation work required us to gather cultural aspects of Argentina where football was highly relevant. This kind of social phenomenon would bring us the right insight for this acquired company?s future plans.

I walked across to those guys and introduced myself as a Bengali Indian living in Paris. You can’t believe how, the moment they heard Kolkata, they spontaneously hugged me. It seems a few in this group of football journalists had gone to ?Mother Theresa?s city? with the Argentina team in 1984 for the Nehru Cup. They marveled at how Kolkatans are so enthusiastic about football. In their happiness over meeting a fellow football lover from across the globe, they offered me a ticket to the famous match that day. I?ll never forget this immediate attachment that football can create anywhere in the world. I?ve experienced two World Cups on the field in France and Spain, and other European football matches, and found the excitement that emanates here to be incomparable to any other bonding experience.

Fortunately, there?s something beyond elite intellectual global recognitions like the Nobel Prize; excellence in sports can also create international heroes with huge fan followings. Actually nobody knows how you get a Nobel Prize; the youngest laureate, Lawrence Bragg, was 25 when together with his father he received the Physics Nobel in 1915. But it?s quite incredible how in sports teenagers like Pele and Maradona could acquire world fame, having proved their genius to the masses, and continued to perform. Look at the poverty Pele, the greatest icon, grew up with in S?o Paulo. He could not afford a football, and usually played with a grapefruit or a sock stuffed with newspaper tied with a string. He?d earn extra money working in tea shops as a servant until he was discovered and taught by his coach. When he scored his 1,000th goal, he dedicated it to the poor children of Brazil. These famous players are a great inspiration and powerful motivator for the under-privileged young generation.

In India, sports is always short changed; we push everything towards school or college education. But everybody in society cannot be, or does not need to be, a graduate; basic school education is enough to become a globally renowned sportsman. Here where slums are prevalent in every city, sports can be a great medium to encourage disadvantaged people to acquire prowess instead of abandoning them into ghettoes where crime generally grows unabated.

?Shombit Sengupta is an international Creative Business Strategy consultant to top managements. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com