Chaitanya Sharma aka Slow Cheeta jokes that Amit R Sharma is “the Virat Kohli of directors”. To the rapper-actor, the director is the force that built an on-screen football team for Maidaan. How did he bag the Ajay Devgn-starrer? Out of the blue, says Chaitanya. “[Until then], I was either a big fish in a small project, or a small fish in a big project. I was shooting for Apna time aayega [Gully Boy, 2019] when I was spotted. I used to play for a football league called Roots. That day, we were losing 2-0, and I scored a hat-trick to win us the game. Maidaan’s first assistant director Atul [Shahi] was there to scout for talent. That was the start. Next three months were gruelling because I kept auditioning again and again. I had to learn a monologue in Bengali. When I was sent to train in March 2019, I realised it’s happening for me,” he recalls. 

PK Banerjee, who was the first Indian football player to receive the Arjuna Award