‘World Cup’ to get under way at Kalamassery this Sunday

The market may well be down.

But that hasn’t dampened the spirit of the football fans in Ernakulam market as they are set to play a mini World Cup of sorts that gets under way in a turf at Kalamassery this Sunday.

The event, to last a fortnight, will be played along the round-robin format and knockout model of the World Cup. Eight teams were split into two groups, with top two teams from each group qualifying for the semifinals. Two games will be played a day between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. with halves of 25 minutes and 20 minutes separated by a break of 15 minutes.

“The teams have been named after the national teams qualified for the World Cup set to kick off in Qatar later this month and will sport their respective jerseys. The kits will be replica of the original national team jerseys without any advertisements in honour of the teams,” said Abdul Salam, a worker in a shop at Ernakulam market and one of the organisers.

Eighty players went into a pot and eight team owners selected 10 players each in a mock auction along the lines of the Indian Premier League. The organisers chose Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Germany, England, France, and Holland as the ‘teams’. “We choose the teams realising that if given an option all team owners would have either chosen Brazil or Argentina,” said Salam.

Majority of the players featuring in the tournament are aged above 40 or even 50 years and have been playing together for the last five or six years. Though it started as a collective of the headload workers, stall owners, and workers from the shops in Ernakulam market, it gradually attracted football lovers from all walks of life, including cops. They have been playing at least five or six days a week without fail.

An event to unveil the teams and the trophy, modelled after the World Cup, was held at the venue on Friday ahead of the kickoff on Sunday.