'Lionel Messi will do a Sachin Tendulkar at FIFA World Cup 2018'

Lionel Messi and Sachin Tendulkar

Far away from Buenos Aires, tucked in a busy pocket of South Kolkata, the Argentina Football Fan Club members are now busy reciting their common prayers: "Let Lionel Messi do a Sachin Tendulkar".

The reference is to Indian cricket's little master winning the World Cup towards the end of his career.It's all a 'Messi affair' at the club now. Its premises in Ganguly Bagan are draped in the posters of the Argentine soccer wizard, with plans afoot to make small statues of the icon and other team's star players designed as if all of them are trying to pull him down.

"Like Sachin won the World Cup towards the end of his career (2011), when he had achieved everything, I have a strong feeling Messi will go the same way," gushes club founder secretary Uttam Saha, 56. Since 1978, when Argentina lifted the World Cup for the first time, Saha has made the team "amra (we)" and Diego Maradona his demigod. Saha is the driving force behind the club established in 2002.

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