24 Mar 2018  |   05:31am IST

Goa’s midnight owls root for their boys in Europe

As the Champions League and Europa League draw out, football fans across Goa are set for a more intense spell, where football comes before anything else even though it means watching these games way past midnight

 

It is 3:15 am and while everyone is fast asleep, a group of

football crazy fans are not going to get sleep anytime soon. The much anticipated football match has just finished, a match that saw the Spanish league’s giants Barcelona and English Premier’s heavyweight Chelsea battle it out for the chance to advance in the Champions League (CL).

The worst fears of any Chelsea fans came true with Lionel Messi wrecking havoc against their team and the former CL winners getting knocked out of Europe’s most prestigious football tournament.

As fans in Goa slam the Chelsea defence, the way they recently slammed FCs Goa’s dismal defending, the Barcelona fans are hoping Barcelona can go all the way and become the kings of Europe one more time.

Likewise, fans of other teams like Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and in the case of the Europa League, Arsenal, as far as the English Premier League( EPL) is concerned, have stayed up in the middle of the night, in the middle of the week, to watch these matches religiously. The same goes for fans of teams from other leagues such the German, Italian and the La Liga.

It does not matter if they have to wake up early the next morning to get to office or college; these die-hard fans would make every possible arrangement to catch these make-or-break matches. What’s even more interesting is that unlike the EPL matches that are usually screened at night in India, these European knockout matches do not allow fans the opportunity of watching these games together at the local pub or restaurant.

So in the absence of these joint screenings and the high-on-adrenalin atmosphere that one can see at these screenings, fans find themselves yelling in joy or anger at their TV sets at home, alone, with the occasional call to a fellow friend. With the football following tribe growing in numbers, the results of these matches are discussed for weeks later and every year, there are one or two dramatic matches that see a high number of goals with a decider at the last minute or a match changing red card, that’s the topic of discussion for the month.

“There is definitely some charm in watching these late night matches as much as it can ruin your day the next time. Every football fan has two lives, their regular one and the one about football only. Before the match, we are making numerous permutations and combinations and after the match, we are stuck thinking about what could have been done right,” says Alister D’Souza from Fatorda.

“So many times there have been cases where we say, ‘Okay I cannot stay up, I will catch the highlights the next morning’ and then you wake up and find out your team scored four goals and won the match at the last minute. And then you curse yourself for not watching the game,” says Nachiket Mhambre from Porvorim.

“Watching the replays is not the same thing. These are what you call ‘must watch games’. Even if it is against an ordinary side at the opening rounds of the tournament, we will still watch it, “adds Carmo Pinto from Anjuna.

“Some people wait for Easter and Christmas. We wait for the Champions League finals. This is going to be a mad year with the World Cup around the corner,” quipps Bernando Da Silva from Panjim.

With the biggest date in the European football calendar nearly upon us, as the 16 clubs have been whittled down to 8, the upcoming quarter finals will be an exciting affair as the road to Ukraine (CL final ) and Lyon (Europa League final) is being hotly contested.