It is a routine that plays out every four years. Indian football fans get louder and more rambunctious as the World Cup draws nearer, even though India is not part of the tournament.
During every World Cup, huge posters of football icons like Argentina’s Lionel Messi, and Brazil’s Neymar, sometimes even adorned with garlands, can be found along roads in the subcontinent’s football-crazy states and regions like Kerala, West Bengal, Goa and the country’s northeast, where fans are for the most part fiercely loyal to Brazil and Argentina.
