KARACHI: The FIFA World Cup 2014 kicks off in Brazil at 1am according to Pakistan time on Friday, and even though Pakistan is not competing in the esteemed event youngsters here are waiting for the competition to open with bated breath.

“The Pakistan football team is ranked 164th in the world. God knows when, if ever, it will feature in any World Cup. We love football so we have picked our own teams to cheer during the event. Most of us follow Brazil, Argentina and Germany,” said Mohammad Sharif, aka Mama Brazil.

Mama Brazil, as his name suggests, is a die-hard Brazil fan who dreams to see Brazil at least once in his lifetime. “I wish I could have gone this time but I’m a poor man,” he shrugs looking around his shop.

The shop is more a World Cup football shrine than a pakora and samosa shop, which is what it is really supposed to be. The wok and stuff have been pushed aside in a corner. The rest of the place has flags of the teams participating in the World Cup and other football souvenirs. “I collect these for four years from Lunda Bazaars, Sunday Bazaars, Shershah, Lighthouse, etc, and then give them away for free to football lovers who come to watch the World Cup during the month on the big screen here,” he said.

Mama Brazil’s shop is located in Siddiq Village in Malir. The entire area on Wednesday was busy preparing for the World Cup. The neighbourhood children were painting huge pictures of Brazil’s Neymar in his traditional bright yellow jersey with his right hand on his heart, Messi in his white and blue Argentina jersey and Germany’s Ozil on the walls of the Gul Baloch Football Club headquarters nearby.

On another wall, they had already painted the flags of all the participating teams in this edition of the Cup according to their groups.

Asked if anyone on whose outside wall they were doing all this painting had a problem with it, Al Nawaz, a resident of the area, only laughed. “Football and especially enjoying the FIFA World Cup is what unites us,” he said.

Upstairs on the roof of the club another wall was being painted white so that it could be used as a big screen on which the matches would be shown live. “We wanted to put up the big screen at our football ground nearby but then decided not to do that in view of the city disturbances,” said Hamidullah, Gul Baloch FC’s finance secretary.

Meanwhile, Lyari, the hub of football in Karachi, didn’t show as much enthusiasm about the upcoming mega event as was seen in Malir. Though there were a few flags flying on buildings here or there, it wasn’t the same thing. “Actually, there has not been so much preparation due to the prevailing situation in the area,” said Bashir Ahmed of Babul Sports soon after refereeing a club football match at the Eidgah ground near Cheel Chowk. “But the enthusiasm is there, believe me. And the excitement will pick up as the tournament progresses,” he added.

Most of the spectators coming out of the ground and the nearby Gabol Park all wore some kind of a football club or country jersey. So the man was right as the enthusiasm could be gauged by that alone.

At another local football tournament at the Aga Khan Gymkhana at Garden, one youngster, Kashif Baloch, was distributing the World Cup draws and schedule printed on cards with the time of matches calculated in Pakistan standard time. At the back of the card was a picture of Pakistan’s Street Child Football team, which bagged bronze in the recent Street Child World Cup (SCWC) in Brazil. The SCWC team will also grace a local hotel with their presence on Thursday evening where the World Cup matches will be screened live.

Sindh Football Association executive member and FIFA Goal Project administrator Rahim Bux Baloch said there were big screens to be put up at various grounds in Lyari for the youngsters of the area to enjoy football. “There will be a 15x12-foot screen at the Kakri Ground in Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Park to watch the matches every day. At the other grounds such as the Kalakot Ground, Gabol Park, Trans Lyari Park in Old Golimar screens will be put up at the quarter-final stage as we are not that rich and the projector rent is Rs1,200 per day after all,” he said. “As there is loadshedding, too, in the night when the matches will be aired live, we have also made arrangements for generators, which also cost a lot of money.”

“Lyari is mini Brazil after all,” said former FIFA referee and regional referee instructor for the Asian Football Confederation Abdul Shakoor Baloch. “Brazil has always been a favourite with Lyariites because its football-playing is very much like ours,” he said. “Brazilian players give short passes and so do our boys in Lyari as they have grown up playing football in narrow lanes where they can only give short passes.”

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2014