Utilising the window of reduced Covid case load in mid-December, residents of Uniworld City took to the field to play ball. The sixth season of Uniworld Football League was held in association with The Telegraph Salt Lake from December 16 to 19.
The tournament comprised different age groups, starting from Toddlers (up to 5 years) and Sub-juniors (6-9 years) up to Juniors (10-13 years) and Seniors (14 years and above). There was an exhibition match for the Super Seniors (40 years and above) as well.
“Earlier there was just one match for the Toddlers. This time we had four teams and six matches. There was also a proper Sub-junior league,” said Soumyajyoti Basu, president of Uniworld Sports Association.
Little feet
There were two matches featuring Toddlers on the final day, with teams bearing fancy names of clubs like AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund, Juventus and Inter Milan. Though the players knew little of the sport the matches had their share of entertainment. For instance, there was no goalkeeper for AC Milan with everyone running up, till Braahmi Kushwaha, 4, was persuaded to stay back by her mother.
The first of the two 14-minute matches ended with AC Milan securing a 1-0 win with Utkarsh Pandey, 5, being the lone scorer. “He has recently started playing football and already loves the game,” said his mother Rashmi Tiwari.
In the next game, Juventus put in two goals past Inter Milan, with one scored directly from a throw. Five-year-old Harfateh Singh put up an impressive show. “He had taken a month’s coaching before the second wave,” said mother Jasbir. Inter Milan managed to score in the dying minutes of the match to make it 1-2.
A slice of action from the Sub-juniors match between teams named after Arsenal and Manchester City. Aranyak Mojumder
Age-defying spirit & skill
The Super Seniors showed class and experience. The 24-minute match, between teams Bro and Dude, was highly competitive. It was also high on injuries as the players, though lacking in fitness, did not hold back on tackles and shoulder charges.
Subir Samaddar, 55, said he had last played football in school. He had to seek substitution after a while but with a thin bench strength that too soon became a problem. Minutes into the second half, Shubhro Bishnu from team Bro limped off with an injury. With no substitute available, Moloy Pal, captain of Dude, gamely volunteered to leave the field too, to make the teams even.
With minutes to go for the final whistle, Kumar Saha from Dude scored the only goal of the match off a pass from Srijit Aon, who displayed wonderful footwork in dribbling past the defenders.
Shanti Singh, the oldest on the field along with Samaddar, stayed put through the match but was seen asking for a medicine for his bruises afterwards.
Manish Kaul from Bro, another 50-plus player on the field, showed exemplary fitness as he sped up and down the wing. Jaideep Banerjee, a pilot for Air India who was goalkeeping for Dude, shared the secret of Kaul’s fitness. “Manish plays football with his son and other youngsters. That’s why he never lost his fitness. The same goes for me and most of our players. We find time in the weekends to play. Our motives are fitness and bonding. Yesterday I watched my two kids play the semi-finals in their category and today they are here to support me,” Banerjee said.
Uniworld City board member Susanta Kumar Sammadar felicitates chief guest Mihir Bose. Picture by Sudeshna Banerjee
Joust of the juniors
The next match for the Juniors was touted to be a Spanish derby, with the two sides named Atletico de Madrid and Real Madrid.
But the match was somewhat one-sided with Atletico dominating from the start. Yet Real managed to keep the ball out of their net and took the match to a tie-breaker. Both teams missed two and scored three goals. Just when Real thought they had taken the lead in the shootout and started celebrating, the referee ordered a retake of the penalty as the player had kicked the ball before his whistle was blown. This time he missed and the game went into sudden death. Real missed again and handed Atletico a narrow win.
The Real players were upset, none being so more than goalkeeper Arav Bali who saved two, conceded two and saw another kick go wide.
A picture of calm confidence was Rangan Bhattacharya of Atletico. The 13-year-old stood under the bar and saved three of the four shots he faced. “I had practised for penalties. I was studying the strikers’ eyes to see which side they were aiming,” he later told The Telegraph Salt Lake.
Girl Power: Garima Goswami of Atletico de Madrid and Urbee Chatterjee of Real Madrid before the match. Picture by Sudeshna Banerjee
Blood and sweat
This was followed by the most awaited match of the evening — the final of the Senior’s tournament, between Spartans and Vikings. The match was interesting as both the teams played an excellent attacking game. The Spartans played pressing football while the Vikings depended mostly on counter-attacks.
Neither did it lack drama. Within minutes of the start, a shot from midfielder Swetasankar Senapati hit Bhaskar Metia of Spartans in the face and broke his glasses, leaving him bleeding from a gash. But the 18-year-old refused to leave the field, despite mother Mithu’s protestations.
The Spartans, with a comparatively younger side, impressed with the pressure they kept up and their footwork while the Vikings used their experience to keep the scoresheet blank till the final whistle. This match, too, went into a tie-breaker, in which the Vikings won 4-3 to lift the trophy. It was only then that Bhaskar left to get his wound stitched.
The Spartans goalkeeper, Vikramaditya Singh, who was by far the tallest on the field at 6.2ft, wore a glum face at having failed to save any of the spot kicks. But he brightened up later, on getting the Best Goalkeeper award as the organisers took his performance in the entire league into account.
Utkarsh Pandey, 5, who shone for AC Milan Picture by Sudeshna Banerjee
Last hurrah
The last match of the evening was the Sub-juniors fixture between Manchester City and Arsenal. This match had a nail-biting finish. The tiny players impressed by keeping the game alive till the final minute. Shaurya Pandey, 9, scored the first goal for Arsenal to give them the lead but just before the final whistle, Manchester City equalised through Darsh Nuharuka.
The match was decided by a penalty shootout in which Shaurya saved a Manchester shot to give Arsenal the lead. But the Gunners failed to utilise the opportunity as they too missed the target. Manchester’s final shot rattled the crossbar before bouncing back to the field and gifted Arsenal the trophy with a 4-3 scoreline.
Medals & chocolates
The matches were followed by the prize distribution ceremony where the chief guest, former footballer Mihir Bose, handed the trophies and medals to the champions and runners-up of all the categories. The fair play award was given to Warriors from the Seniors league.
All the Toddlers were given a medal to boost their interest in the sport while all the female footballers were gifted with chocolates. While the beaming faces of the little ones shone brighter than their medals, Shaurya was upset at being refused a chocolate. “I could give away my trophy for a chocolate,” he sulked.
The organisers had allowed girls and boys to play together in teams up to 14years of age. Piusa Das from Real Madrid won the best defender award for her category.
Basu, the sports body president, said: “Our main motive is to create harmony among our residents and for that purpose we have also introduced a fair play award. The enthusiasm that our people show for the sport influences us to organise this event. Last year, due to the pandemic, we held it on a smaller scale. To compensate for that, this year we have made it bigger than ever.”
Indeed, there was live streaming of the event on the complex’s YouTube page and website uniworldsports.com through a four-camera set-up, sponsored by Kumar Saha, the scorer in the Super Seniors match, who runs an IT company. The player registration too had happened on the complex’s app where age verification took place and jersey sizes of individuals were recorded.
Bose, the chief guest and a resident of EE Block, was impressed. “This is the first time I am watching a tournament in New Town. Though Bengal football is in the doldrums now, seeing such a pool of players gives me hope that if they are nursed they might play professionally some day. And even if they don’t, they will retain a love for the game which will make them support football when they reach leadership roles in big companies,” said the man who had scored against China in the first Nehru Cup in 1982 and had represented the Big Three in club football till 1988.
Did you watch Uniworld Football League? Write in to saltlake@abp.in