Wont believe that bongs are actually in this World Cup 2006...Dhorasoo may be the only Indian in fray, but there area lot of Bengalis in action. Firstly, there is another French player, Louis Saha, related to Meghnad Saha.However, a few players from the famous Sen family are playing, like Jan Sen of Germany and Ol Sen of USA. England's goalkeeper, however, spells his name SON instead of Sen, but he was Robin Sen to begin with.
Lot of Bongs are playing under nick-names, especially for African teams. Togo's goalkeeper is Kossi Agassa, which in Chittagongese means fledgling weed. Another African nation, Ghana, has our own Sri Shiladitya, who has Africanised his name to Illiasu Shilla. Ghana also has Gyan. Then there is Kali playing for Angola. I remember 35 years ago a midfielder called Kali Babu Sharma playing for the big clubs in Calcutta -Angola's Kali must be a relative. Then Ivory Coast has Boka, whose full name need not be mentioned, but the second part starts with 'C' and ends with 'a'. Kalou of Ivory Coast hails from Phuliya. Ivory Coast also has Bakary Kone, who once lived in the corner of Lord's bakery. European teams have their Bongs, too. That small boy is playing for Germany, in fact he is the captain. Balak is his name, now Germanised to Ballack. Then there is that super strong player for Croatia,Balaban. Then there is Manish Ray of Portugal, now called Maniche Rai. Spain has a Bong who is very lazy and never hits the ball - Marchena.
Some Bong players are using their family names. DearKaka scored a great goal for Brazil yesterday.Brazil'sgoalie is Dida, obviously breaking the gender bias(and the age barrier). Brazil of course broke thisgender bias long ago, when they fielded Didi in the50s and early 60s. That player has now retired fromfootball and returned to Bengal as a political leaderof Trinamool Congress.
Then Togo has a strange player who is also using a family name, or two, to be exact. These are Mashi andMesho, and the player is very, very fit or 'changa'.The name has been Africanised to Massamesso Tchangai -an 'Ordho-Narishwar' sort of player. Our very own Madan plays for Iran, he's changed his name slightly to Madanchi.Tunisia has another player who is obviously Bong and obviously suffering from that dreaded Bong disease of 'amasha'. He now calls himself Karim Haggui
