January 13,1984: I was 16, and it was the first football match I had watched with my own eyes rather than through the grain of a Doordarshan transmission. My father and I were among the 80,000 football fans crowded into Eden Gardens, for a Nehru Cup encounter between an unfancied India and mighty Argentina.
A video clip of that game resurfaced on YouTube a couple of weeks ago and refreshed three of my lasting memories of the game. The first is of disappointment: Diego Maradona, already reckoned to be the best player of his generation, had stayed home. But the Argentines were not lacking in quality. Carlos Bilardo was in the dugout, and his team that evening included Nery Pumpido, Oscar Garré, Ricardo Giusti and Jorge Burruchaga, all of whom would be World Cup winners in Mexico two years later.
The Indian team may have lacked players of that class, but it had a coach of genuine international pedigree: Milovan Ćirić of Yugoslavia (as it was then) who had managed Lazio and Valencia.
The second memory is of euphoria: it was a fantastic game, and by any measure other than the scoreline, one best an Indian football team has ever played. Hopelessly outgunned in attack, Ćirić’s men nonetheless defended magnificently...
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