"Euro Cup" is widely considered as a competition that matches the Football World Cup in terms of sheer intensity of the competition, sparkling action and passion amongst viewers and supporters. My long-standing cyber friend Dr Jose Colaco may not have believed me the last time round but perhaps he now will. Portugal was the team that I rooted for during the last European Championships held in 2004.
Luis Figo and Rui Costa, the core of the golden generation of Portuguese football and players whom I greatly admired, were an integral part of this team, playing alongside other rising stars like Nuno Gomes. A majority of the Goans who love their football as much as they like their "Fish and Curry" rooted for this team; only to drown themselves in the sorrowful glasses of beer when their favourite team went down to Tournament underdogs Greece by a whisker. Euro 2004 had its fair share of sparks, local political flavour and some ideological humour too; with the then BJP President Rajendra Arlekar embarrassing himself by claiming that those who were supporting the Portugal Football Team were Anti-Nationals. The Master of All Trades "Nandakumar I-Know-It-All Kamat" too surprisingly joined the chorus and wrote a column on somewhat similar lines in a local daily. Euro 2008 is underway now. So are all those who are supporting the Portugal Team Anti-Nationals? Do we suffer from a Portuguese hangover? My friend is a great fan of Manchester United and in his car; in his home and in his office you will find flags/stickers/T-Shirts of his favourite English Premier League Team. My Neighbour simply loves Ghazals, Pakistani Artists Ghulam Ali and Mehendi Hassan are her favourites. My cousin sister is a great fan of Imran Khan and she used to pray for him whenever he used to play. Being a huge fan of music, I thoroughly enjoyed the closing Film "Fados" screened during the 'IFFI' Closing ceremony. Is supporting other artists and sportsmen from Other Countries, even when India is not playing, a Crime? So am I an anti-National? Are we all Anti-Nationals? Should we wear our Nationalities on our sleeves and sing the Vande Mataram every time we enter the shower and the "Pakistan hai hai" slogans everytime the two neighbours lock horns on the porting arena? With the near iconic status that the World's best Player Christiano Ronaldo is enjoying at the moment and with other emerging stars like Nani and Pepe in their ranks, the support for the Portugal team this time is bound to grow by leaps and bounds from the last. On Day one of Euro 2008, I stayed awake to watch the Portugal-Turkey match, a match that turned out to be quite sparkling and entertaining. Portugal won 2-0, but had luck been on their side the margin could easily have been bigger. Hopefully, at least now Rajendra Arlekar and others of his ilk will look at all this by removing their ultra-Nationalist ideological spectacles. If we are supporting the Portuguese Football Team, it is because of their flair, their elegance and the fact that like Brazil, they make the ball talk and sing. Hopefully, we will not hear a repeat of such foolish comments again. Cheers Sandeep Heble Panjim
