To Russia... With Love... for the Game....

Ever since Cricket was dead to me when Mohammed Azharuddin, among others, were allegedly involved in the match fixing charade, I was able to devote my full attention to world football, particularly the Brazilian and Catalonian football and playmakers. Ronaldo de Assis Moreira a.k.a. Ronaldinho Gaucho alias Ronaldinho is a man apart in that regard. The man is a legend. Before the Messiah, Ronaldinho captivated me, along with the whole world with his class, his touch and his samba within! I absolutely adored his game as well has philosophy and he was seen almost always with a smile on his face, the creator of the No-Look pass. It  was his game that attracted me to FC Barcelona and, as an inevitable consequence, to the "tika-taka" of the Spanish football. The game kept absorbing me and I kept asking for more. Whenever a World Cup arrives, there is always a hurried frenzy in my town with flags of every other nation, the green and yellow, the white and blue, the red cross on the white; the black, red and yellow to name a few. The game for me, like for many others, is not just a game. Like that bloke Bill Shankly said, football for us is not a matter of life and death, it's much more than that! To be able to share the time and space in this Universe, with The Messiah and The CR7 and the like (yes it's Messi before CR7 for me) is in itself the greatest gift the universe can bestow upon us. This is their era of greatness and we are their witness. Our children and their children will hear about them legends long after they're gone and we re gone. And I'm here trying to catch a glimpse of their greatness on the field, in the stadium, in the stands, where ever possible. I will breath the same air as them the next few days as the world of football descends upon the continent of Mother Russia!

After we've checked in, we headed straight to the FIFA Fan Fest area that has been put up in the Moscow State University Campus. After about 4 kilometers walking with the fans of all nations and origin, we finally reach the festivities and that was proper exciting! I had my espana shirt on to show my support to the Spanish who had a game that night later on with Morocco. I was greeted by a lot of people who appreciated the Spanish game, some also with the Spanish shirt like me and others with many other colours. The ambiance was absolutely perfect and there were people dancing and some smaller groups of fans were on a light game of Rondo(Nadukkallan) with people who they probably just met. Me and Rasheedka also played a bit with them. It was truly a global game of Rondo!

As we we're waiting for our game at 9 pm local time to start, we started talking to 3 Russian youngsters. Vlad was the guy's name. Of course it was Vlad, what else could it be, we in Russia babbe! I don't remember the names of the two girls but all of them were very nice. Achan and Alikka started talking about how important Russia is, and about communism. We said we came from South of India. Vlad immediately responds with "indiaaaa yessss Royal Enfield!", aha! The conversation progressed to a discussion regarding one specific lad from the Latin America, who goes by the name Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Now, Vlad wasn't able to converse well in English at all, which means the convo was going absolutely smoothly. He heard the name Che and he rolled up his left sleeve to reveal a huge tattoo he has of the man himself. Achan almost cried out of pride and joy! That was a suprise they were not ready for! 

We were a bit disappointed that they were showing only the Portugal game on all of the screens and I was afraid my Spanish shirt would go wasted! We watched the Portugal game for a while and that's when a few of the Moroccan fans told us that the Spain game was being aired on a screen on the right side of the fan fest. Just one screen. But better than none at all. We headed there and finished the day with the nail-biting finish the group standings had with two draws for both the games. 

Tomorrow... To the Luzhniki Stadium!