The noise. There's nothing like it in Indian football... in almost all Indian sport. There's a decibel count that a packed-to-the-rafters Salt Lake stadium makes that needs to be heard, felt, to be understood.
For a long time on Saturday night, it felt like we wouldn't hear it this ISL final. There was encouragement, but it was more of the 'come-on-do-something' kind than anything else. It was still loud, mind: the official attendance put it at 59,112 fans in the stadium and with atleast 59,000 of them supporting home team Mohun Bagan, it was some atmosphere even when they weren't trying all that hard.
A large reason for that loud-but-not-epic feeling was how quiet Bengaluru FC had kept Bagan for most of the match on the pitch. Until minute 70, in fact, Bagan had been reduced to half-chances, hopeful balls into channels and poor first touches/final passes ruining attacking moves. At one point, BFC were so dominant, so in control that Bagan had just 26% of the ball. When Alberto Rodriguez smashed the ball into the roof of his own net, the place went as silent as any that's ever held 59,112 humans. Then... the ball hit Sana Singh on his hand. Off a Jason Cummings cross, Jamie Maclaren found a bit of space at the edge of the BFC, swiveled and hit a first timer into a diving Sana's raised arm. The ref had no hesitation in raising his, either: penalty to Bagan
Cue, the noise.
There was a brief, nervous pause as Jason Cummings strode to the ball and another explosion when his superbly hit penalty nestled in the bottom corner. It shook the place. Fireworks went off inside, and outside the stadium. Parth Jindal, BFC owner, posted on X about fireworks hitting him. Of course they must have, they were everywhere. Chants and cheers and whistles melded into something far more primal, a long collective roar that went on long into the night. All the way till extra time started, the score 1-1, the momentum firmly with the men in maroon and green.
There were brief eruptions over and above the wall of noise -- when Sahal Abdul Samad danced his way past Pedro Capo, hip-swiveled past Roshan Singh and smacked a shot at Gurpreet Singh; when Ashique Kuruniyan flicked a ball over Roshan's head and then left him and Rahul Bheke on the floor with a drop of his shoulder; when Greg Stewart rewrote the laws of physics to bend a ball towards Maclaren from an impossible angle, through a tangle of BFC limbs.
This was Mohun Bagan showing off, incidentally, all three names mentioned above were mid-late second half subs, stardust sprinkled across the squad in a way that at no point did the theoretical quality of their playing XI ever dip.
And then, somehow, in the 96th minute, the Salt Lake got louder. One of those players with that magic stardust in their boots had caught a spark.
It started with Stewart meandering his way into the box in that nonchalant style of his and whipping in a cross that was intercepted by Sana. As he stretched his leg, though, the ball bounced off Sana's boot and on his shoulder was Maclaren. He didn't have the clearest chance at the moment he got the ball, but a touch straight out of centre-forward heaven and he was face-to-face with Gurpreet. Before the big keeper could register this fact, Maclaren lashed a shot low and hard and straight through Gurpreet's legs. All night long he'd struggled with his first touch, but when it mattered most, he'd found a way to bend the ball to his will. Two world-class touches and Mohun Bagan were leading... and oh, didn't the Salt Lake love it.
The roar surely registered on the Richter scale, somewhere. Large swathes of the pitch couldn't be seen clearly, covered as it was with a haze of smoke from the flares that had been set off across the stadium.
Maclaren's goal, meanwhile, was present-day Mohun Bagan in its purest form. They appear to do nothing for so much of the match, but when they turn it on there's nothing that can stop them. Call them boring, brilliant or anything in between - at the end of the match rarely is the number next to their name lower than the one next to their opponents'.
Speaking to this writer ahead of the match, Maclaren had spoken about these strengths of theirs -- the depth in their squad ("it doesn't really matter who plays for us up top, they'll always be quality and the combinations have been great"), the clarity of thought the forwards possess ("as attacking players, you know that the guys at the back are not going to concede as many chances and it's really down to us to take our chances when they come."), and the names wearing the Bagan shirt ("in big moments, you need big players and big personalities") and the sheer weight of numbers behind them ("65,000 people again, there's no better feeling than playing in front of such a big crowd") -- and they had all played out perfectly.
2-1 the game ended, and predictably, boringly, inevitably, the inarguably best football team in the country was crowned ISL champions. Cup and League and everything else was now going to the Mohun Bagan tent in the maidan. Maclaren had been prophesying when he said, "When I first signed for Mohun Bagan, I knew trophies were going to come." As local boy, childhood fan, club captain Subhasish Bose raised the trophy high over his head, the Salt Lake - still full - had one last roof-raising roar left in them. You didn't have to be a fan to experience the goosebumps.
As the writer climbed down the steps of the cavernous stadium, the ears were still ringing... The noise. There's nothing quite like it.