Last month, when large cutouts of Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar appeared in the middle of the Kurungattu Kadavu river in Kerala, the World Cup fever had only caught up. I was in Dublin, preparing for my short trip to India. I showed one of the news reports of the installation to my friends and dug up some old photographs I had taken in Kerala during the 2018 World Cup. Homes and shops were painted blue and white or green and yellow, depending on the fanbases. Cherppu Portuguese Fans had put up a large flex of the Portuguese team, wishing them good luck. Germany, Belgium, France, and other countries with marginally smaller fan bases, had fewer posters in public spaces. Samba Sali, a famous Brazil fan from Thrissur, painted his scooter in the colours of the Brazilian flag and drove around the city with a large cut-out of Neymar stuck to his scooter.
As I prepared my travel plans in November 2022, the first thing I added to the itinerary was being in Kerala in time for the football World Cup final. There were two large screens set up near home in Kerala: a smaller one on the public ground opposite the Mahatma Gandhi Library, and a second large one in Ayyankaavu Maidaanam in Irinjalakuda, the main public ground in Thrissur town.
On Saturday, 17 December, I decided to check out the smaller venue for the third-place play-off between Morocco and Croatia. My mother accompanied me, not because she had the slightest interest in football, but out of sheer curiosity. We were among the first people there that evening, and although some more trickled in after, it was a pretty sober affair and we left at halftime. The game didn’t do much to add to the atmosphere either. So when I decided to go to the Ayyankaavu Maidanam for the final, my expectations had been quite deflated. Francis chettan, a long-time friend, joined me.
The Ayyankaavu Maidanam, which is roughly the size of a full-length football pitch, is a stone’s throw away from the main road that leads in and out of the town, right next to the Municipal Office. In the evenings, this is where multiple football matches happen simultaneously, while youngsters meet and make friends. This is also where the sevens tournament, when it comes to town, is set up. On one side of it is Sindhu Theatre, now permanently closed, presumably after running into losses during the lockdown. On the other side are some shops and houses. A screen, more than twice as large as the one near the Library was set up in front of the Municipal Office overlooking the public ground, which had already started to fill when we got there fifteen minutes before kick-off. The few chairs in the front row were all occupied, and more and more people kept pouring in as the game progressed.
As Messi scored the penalty in the 23rd minute, the crowd went into a frenzy. Fireworks went off, and chants of “Vamos Argentina” echoed across the ground. At one point, I looked behind me and lost count of the number of Argentine jerseys with Messi’s name inscribed on it. Sporadically, I spotted jerseys of Ronaldo and Neymar Jr. I spotted one person each wearing Thiago Silva, Eden Hazard, and Kun Agüero. Just when it seemed like there were no French fans in the vicinity, loud cheers were heard as France scored and equalised the game before full-time.
At one point, a young boy named Chriswin came up to me asking if I could click a photograph of him. Then, another came to me, waving an Argentina flag. He asked if I could share his picture via Instagram and connected with me online, introducing himself as Aslam. Just when the game was entering extra time, I spotted three friends, all wearing Messi jerseys, and asked if I could click pictures. One of them proceeded to pose for me, facing away from the camera and pointing his hands at Messi’s name embedded behind his jersey. He went on to introduce himself as Jishnu, added me on Whatsapp, and asked if I could share the photograph with him later.
Anyone who watched the game will attest that the final itself was a spectacle that deserved no less than enthralled crowds cheering at the top of their voices. There were youngsters, older people, men, women, and children. There were tears, joy, frustration, and lots and lots of happy dancing.
For a short three-hour window, the fifteen thousand kilometers that separate the small public ground in Kerala’s Thrissur from the long South American country didn’t seem to matter.
S Harikrishnan is an Assistant Professor at Dublin City University and a founding editor of Ala.