Unlucky loss for Goa, but it’s time to look to the future

The year was 1983. Goa was playing West Bengal in the Santosh trophy final in Calcutta. There was no live telecast of the match, but across Goa people stayed tuned to their radios listening as the commentators brought the exploits of Brahmanand Shankwalkar, Camilo Gonsalves, Dionisio Trinidade, Mahesh Lotlikar, Vasu dev, Custodio Almeida, Mauricio Afonso, Nicholas Pereira, Ashok Fadte, Herbert San, Bento Andrew, Arnold Rodrigues, and others live to their homes. Goa didn’t win that match. It drew with West Bengal, then as now a giant in Indian football. As per the then existing rules there was a rematch that again ended in a draw and the trophy was then shared and though West Bengal won the right to keep it for the first six months of the year after a toss. But as a good gesture Bengal offered it to Goa for the first half, because Goa had never won the trophy.

The team returned to Goa with the trophy, paraded through the streets of the State and the players turned heroes in their villages. Fans lit crackers, beat on drums and celebrated. The next year, playing in Madras, Goa defeated Punjab in the final by a solitary goal headed by Camilo off a cross from Herbert San to prove that the draw of the previous year was no fluke, that they were a team to contend with and taken seriously.

That was when winning the Santosh trophy was considered the ultimate in Indian soccer. There was nothing to beat a Santosh victory, and it was that first win of Goa on the Indian soccer field which told the nation that footballers were also produced on the West coast of India and not just the East coast. Goan clubs had won national club tournaments, but the Santosh Trophy made the India team selectors sit up and take notice of the Goan players.

Since then Goa has won the Santosh trophy five times and now came close to a sixth triumph on Sunday evening at home. Playing at the Athletics Stadium, Bambolim, Goa lost to West Bengal in extra time by a solitary goal in the 119th minute, unable to reclaim the trophy they last won in 2009. It was unlucky for Goa, losing in the dying minutes of the game, and luck of late has played a mean game with Goan football.

The Santosh championship has been shorn of much of its glamour. The top stars don’t play in it any longer and the crowds turning up to cheer the team were sparse. Whenever Goa played there was a fair number of spectators. For the final the stands were full even before the match could kick off. But at the other matches, where Goa did not play, the stands were near empty, a concern voiced by the FIFA team that inspected the Fatorda stadium last week in preparation for the Under-17 Football World Cup. If home side India is not playing in Goa will the fans fill the stadium? That is the worry. In October last year the stadiums went empty for the AFC Under-16 Football Championship.

Football, in the last three years, has become almost synonymous with the ISL with the FC Goa fan following cutting across ages, leading to smaller crowds at other football tournaments, with the I-League played before almost empty stands. Sunday’s Santosh trophy final was telecast live, and though it may not have drawn the audience that the radio commentary did in 1983, that the stands were full and the ghumats drummed out a steady and loud rhythm and horns blared was evidence that there still exists a fan following for football.

Now, putting the Santosh loss and the ISL debacle behind it’s time to look forward. Before the Under-17 World Cup starts there is a lot of work that Goa Football Association and the fans need to do. Football needs to be resurrected not just on the field but in the stands too.