The day when Mohun Bagan nearly beat the Pele-led New York Cosmos

The iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata normally gets jam packed for important cricket matches But on September 24 1977 the stadium was filled to the rafters for a football match or more particularly because just about anybody who could get a ticket or a pass had come to watch one player in actionThat player was none other than the Brazilian legend Pele regarded by most football aficionados as the greatest player ever to grace the football fieldPele visited India twice the first time in 1977 as part of the New York Cosmos team which he had joined towards the end of his career travelling across the world to promote the game through exhibition matchesOn his second visit in 2015 Pele arrived in New Delhi and then went to Kolkata on a weeklong tour He witnessed the Subroto Cup U17 final in DelhiIt was his visit in 1977 that generated huge interest in the country and is still remembered by thousands of fans who had linedup the road from Kolkatas Dum Dum to his hotel and then from his hotel to the Eden Gardens which had around 80000 spectatorsIt was an especially memorable visit for the team from the iconic Mohun Bagan club that played against the New York Cosmos and held the starstudded outfit which also had Brazilian World Cup winner Carlos Alberto and Italian Giorgio Chinaglia to a 22 drawLakhs of people gathered outside the Dum Dum Airport to greet the Brazilian legend There were also teeming crowds outside his hotel in central Kolkata waiting to catch a glimpse of the only man who had won three World Cups for his team football historian Novy Kapadia recounted the incident in his book Barefoot to BootsThe match is etched in the memory of players such as former India captain Subrata Bhattacharya Pradeep Chowdhury PK Bannerji Surajit Sengupta and Mohammed HabibAlso readISL NorthEast United FC score first points of the season beat ATK Mohun Bagan 10Bannerji and Chowdhury were tasked with marking the legend and they did a fine job Habib had a great match and Pele later had a chat with the India striker and praised him for his performanceAccording to another account the Mohun Bagan players were so mesmerised by Peles presence on the ground that they abandoned their warmup routine and just stood there to watch the Brazilian get ready for the matchMany people would find it difficult to believe that an Indian club team was ever on the verge of victory against any outfit that had Pele in it But it is a factAdmittedly Pele aged 38 at that time was past his prime but still enthralled fans with a superb display of his mercurial and magical skillsAlso the Cosmos team invited by some senior Mohun Bagan officials did not get enough time to acclimatise and prepare for the match also hampered by the ground which was soggy due to overnight rain and therefore managed to draw the match thanks to a controversial penalty after trailing till the fag end of the matchShyam Thapa and Akbar Ali had scored for Mohun Bagan and though the 80000 fans lucky enough to cram into the Eden Gardens could not see Pele score a goal it was still a moment of a lifetime for them to get a glimpse of the threetime World Champion and witness his sublime skillsThat memorable visit by the greatest footballer in the world has remained etched in the memory of all those lucky enough to get an opportunity to witness itIt was Peles penultimate match as a professional and he retired from all forms of the game a few days laterPeles most recent visit was to attend a conference organised by a leading newspaper During that visit the 75yearold stayed in India for a week and visited Kolkata again interacting with young players and administrators during his stay in the countryAs Pele passes on many oldtimers in Kolkata will be remembering the legend and his connection with India especially with the City of JoyThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever