Indians in Bangladesh find solace in cheering for the men in blue

by Chittu Shetty September 6, 2018

Support for your home country in any foreign country is always a bonus. The Indian Football Team has been lucky as they had quite a handful of Indians who turned up at the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka when Stephen Constantine’s boys played Sri Lanka in their opening fixture of the ongoing SAFF Suzuki Cup.

“It’s good to speak our own language in a foreign country. But now as we get an opportunity to support our own country in Dhaka, we could not afford to let the opportunity slip at any cost,” Saikat Ghosh, an outright Indian Football fan residing in Dhaka for last a couple of years, pronounced.

Ghosh, employed with a renowned MNC, has been an avid football lover since his childhood. Moreover, he got a couple of his colleagues too to the ground to back the blue.

“You know, the traffic in Dhaka is horrible and it took us more than a couple of hours to reach the stadium from our office. But that couldn’t stop us from coming here to cheer for our team,” Pradip Dutta, another football-fanatic present at the stadium commented.

The entire population of Dhaka is over 9 Million and a major chunk of that comprises of Indian. The country shares quite a few similarities with their neighbours right from the writer of the National Anthem to the generic food habits.

“We lead a happy 365-day life here in Dhaka but when it comes down to any face-off between these two countries, it turns out to be a battle-field. Be it Football, Cricket or any other sport, we fight it out on the field. The animosity, however, stays confined to just the field and we turn friends thereafter,” Ghosh uttered.

Although India have been on the winning side 15 times (out of 28 matches) against Bangladesh so far, the last encounter was an occasion where they could only steal a draw from the jaws of defeat. Sunil Chhetri’s last-gasp free-kick earned India a 2-2 draw at the JLN Stadium in Goa on March 5, 2014.

Coming back to the ongoing SAFF Suzuki Cup, the hosts staged an emphatic victory over Bhutan by the same margin a day before. A clash in the knock-out stage is looming large and these football-lovers are fancying knocking the hosts down at their very own ground, thanks to Constantine’s young Turks’ promising start to the campaign against Sri Lanka.

“Full marks to our boys for the win, but we want more. The team has come to defend the trophy and we’re sure they will be able to do it. Wish we play Bangladesh in the final on 15^th and have the last laugh” Dutta laughed.