The World Cup 2006 is on, and how! Jome Kulpi !

Yesterday history of sorts was made when Vikash Dhorasoo of France became the first player of Indian origin to play in the finals. And he almost got France the winner.

Well, Dhorasoo may be the only Indian in fray, but there are a lot of Bongs in action. Firstly, there is another French player, Louis Saha, related to Meghnad. The absence of Denmark means that the hordes of Badyis are missing out this time. However, a few players from the famous Sen family are playing, like Jan Sen of Germany and Ol Sen of USA. England’s goalkeeper, however, spells his name SON instead of Sen, but he was Robin Sen to begin with.

Lot of Bongs are playing under nick-names, especially for African teams. Togo’s goalkeeper is Kossi Agassa, which in Chittagongese means fledgling weed. Another African nation, Ghana, has our own Sri Shiladitya, who has Africanised his name to Illiasu Shilla. Ghana also has Gyan. Then there is Kali playing for Angola. I remember 35 years ago a midfielder called Kali Babu Sharma playing for the big clubs in Calcutta – Angola’s Kali must be a relative. Then Ivory Coast has Boka, whose full name need not be mentioned, but the second part starts with ‘C’ and ends with ‘a’. Kalou of Ivory Coast hails from Phuliya. Ivory Coast also has Bakary Kone, who once lived in the corner of Lord’s bakary.

European teams have their Bongs, too. That small boy is playing for Germany, in fact he is the captain. Balak is his name, now Germanised to Ballack. Then there is that super strong player for Croatia, Balaban. Then there is Manish Ray of Portugal, now called Maniche Rai. Spain has a Bong who is very lazy and never hits the ball – Marchena.
Some Bong players are using their family names. Dear Kaka scored a great goal for Brazil yesterday. Brazil’s goalie is Dida, obviously breaking the gender bias (and the age barrier). Brazil of course broke this gender bias long ago, when they fielded Didi in the 50s and early 60s. That player has now retired from football and returned to Bengal as a political leader.

Aruna Kone and Aruna Dindane are two Ivorians who have also triumphed over gender bias.

Then Togo has a strange player who is also using a family name, or two, to be exact. These are Mashi and Mesho, and the player is very, very fit or ‘changa’. The name has been Africanised to Massamesso Tchangai – an ‘Ordho-Narishwar’ sort of player.

Tunisia has another player who is obviously Bong and obviously suffering from that dreaded Bong disease of ‘amasha’. He now calls himself Karim Haggui.

The Brazilian team is actually Bangali in disguise. Mix the colors of Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting and you get the brilliant green and yellow Brazilian flag

That ensures that we Bongs take part hush hush conditions in the world cup …otherwise if we dominated the Indian phootball team so well, Orjoon Singho would have asked for reserbhations there too !

ee saala….main tumhare sar ke saat football khelunga….:-)

Loved the part of the players going down on each other… ooops i mean the part abt the chips being down

well, i think that is precisely why you are “yourfan” … had it been the other way round (that is, had it struck you before it struck GB) may be Arnab’s blog-nick would have been completely different – something like “yourfanFAN”

cheers.