Playing host to big stars, particularly in football, is no big task for the City of Joy. It has hosted players like Pele, Lev Yashin, Karl Heinz Rummenigge and Oliver Kahn.
Maradona mania in Kolkata as the Argentine legend comes to the city on a two-day visit
KOLKATA: Playing host to big stars, particularly in football, is no big task for the City of Joy. It has hosted players like Pele, Lev Yashin, Karl Heinz Rummenigge and Oliver Kahn. But this time, Kolkata is a little more anxious and excited, for it is none other than Diego Armando Maradona, the prince of football, who has come calling.
Unlike other stars who displayed their skills on the maidan, the 1986 World Cup hero is not going to play an exhibition match. But the organisers still expect a full house (more than one lakh) at the Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday where a felicitation function has been organised.
Maradona, arguably greatest footballer ever, is expected to land at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport at 1:30 am. He will then be whisked away to ITC Sonar Bangla hotel, in a 22-seater plush coach on which the state has spent Rs 19 lakh.
Even at that hour, over 20,000 people are expected to throng the airport for the Argentine legend’s arrival.
From the hotel, Maradona will then proceed to Maheshtala, on the outskirts of the city, to inaugurate Indian Football School, an academy for the budding footballers.
The moment for the packed house to see the legend in flesh and blood will come at 4pm. Maradona will come to the Salt Lake Stadium to witness a match between Indian XI and Foreigners’ XI. He will then be felicitated by the state government and other associations.
Maradona will again be seen in action on Sunday when he visits the Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity followed by a clinic at the lawns of the country’s oldest football club — Mohun Bagan — before he leaves the country on Sunday. He is also likely to pay a visit to veteran communist leader and former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti
Basu at his residence.
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