Jaipur, April 09, 2024.
Ajay Devgn plays Syed Abdul Rahim with a patent sincerity and only a hint of the slo-mo swagger. His rag-tag team has the kind of composition so syncretic that it makes you ache with nostalgia.
It takes a village to raise a child. And it takes a country to create a cracking team capable of beating the best in the world. The inspiring real-life story of Syed Abdul Rahim, pioneering football coach and manager under whose watch India won two gold medals, one each in the Asian Games of 1951 and 1962, .
Just for bringing to life a now sadly-forgotten figure who galvanised a young team to do its best against such formidable Asian foes as Indonesia and S Korea, the ‘Maidaan’ team deserves major props. It is football, in which India hasn’t been able to make an international dent after Rahim bowed out, following a hard struggle with lung cancer, and not cricket, the go-to sport for Bollywood sporting dramas.