Seventy-seven-year-old Pannalal Chatterjee and his wife Chaitali, 67, have been religiously attending the last seven World Cup finals and nurture the dream to watch their favourite team Brazil host the cup in 2014.

“Brazil is the the Mecca of football. Hope we will be alive till then to see the World cup in that country... that’s our only wish,” says Pannalal, former Kolkata Port Trust employee who lives in a narrow bylane at Kidderpore in south Kolkata and saves money to be able to make it to the “football carnival”.

The couple say they always take the Tricolour with them and fly it high even as curious spectators ask when India will play football.

“We have no answer to their queries... But we tell them we are proud Indians and have come here to watch the World Cup,” adds Pannalal.

A club-level player himself in the 1950s and an avid football fan, Pannalal’s tryst with the World Cup began way back in 1982 when he was holidaying at his friend’s place in London.

“We made use of the opportunity to visit Spain and watched a match together. The spirit of football, the grandeur of the World Cup stayed on with us and then we planned to watch the 1986 edition in Mexico,” Pannalal, also a U-19 AIFF technical committee member, said.

They said they had been fortunate to have witnessed the famous ‘Hand of God’ goal by Diego Maradona in the 1986 Argentina vs England quarterfinal which is a part of folklore now.

Chaitali too became passionate and the duo’s most memorable moment in their lives is 1986 World Cup when they eventually got a chance to meet Pele.

“That was the best memory we have had. The atmosphere cannot be expressed in words. Brazil and Argentina play like tigers in search of a prey...such is the intensity. The pitch is lush green without a single uneven grass,” they said.