Why do Bangladesh and Kerala care so much about Messi and Ronaldo?

Bangladesh has never played in a World Cup. As of July 2026 its men’s team sat 181st in the FIFA rankings, according to Al Jazeera. Yet every four years the country hangs Argentine and Brazilian flags from rooftops, bridges and rickshaws, and argues about them so hard that it has sometimes turned ugly. Kerala and Kolkata in India do much the same.

I wanted to understand why, and where Ronaldo fits in a region that is famously blue-and-white and yellow-and-green. ⚽

Let’s dive in!

📚 Content

• Television, Maradona and a borrowed team
• The thank-you from Buenos Aires
• Kerala: the river and the cut-outs
• Kolkata: when the man himself came
• Ronaldo has his own territory
• Why a country without a team adopts one
• Thank you

Television, Maradona and a borrowed team

Most accounts start in 1986. Television was spreading across Bangladesh, many people watched their first World Cup that summer, and Diego Maradona was the story of it. Al Jazeera’s report from the 2022 final quotes a journalist, Syed Faiz Ahmed, saying the tournament “saw the emergence of a superhero”. Brazil had been the first love of an older generation, with Pelé a hero to young Bangladeshis in the 1960s and 1970s, as bdnews24 recounts. Argentina arrived as the counterweight, and the country has been split in two since.

A former Bangladesh coach told Al Jazeera in 2026 that Maradona’s tears after the 1990 final deepened the attachment, because they touched ordinary people. That’s a theory about a feeling, not a measurement. Still, it makes sense to me that fans of a team with no flag of their own would pick one with a story.

Then the Messi years changed the scale. Al Jazeera’s 2022 report quotes the commentator Shahnoor Rabbani saying Bangladeshi affection for Messi “even supersedes” that for Maradona. The explanation is practical: fans can now follow European club football all year and watch their idols on a phone. A weekly fixture, not a four-yearly one, builds a different kind of devotion.

The thank-you from Buenos Aires

On 19 December 2022, hours after the World Cup final, Argentina’s official account posted a video of Bangladeshi celebrations with the line “Thank you Bangladesh. Thank you Kerala, India, Pakistan. Your support was wonderful!”, as The Business Standard reported. It’s an unusual thing for a national team to do, and it didn’t stop there.

On 27 February 2023, Argentina reopened its embassy in Dhaka, closed since 1978. Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said that “the emotions for football reunited both countries” (Arab News), and a football cooperation agreement was signed during the visit. Bangladesh’s foreign minister, A. K. Abdul Momen, put it more simply: Messi, he said, is in everyone’s heart. Football didn’t cause the diplomacy alone, and the report notes textile exports were part of the conversation, but the timing of the embassy says something.

Kerala: the river and the cut-outs

In India, the football state is Kerala, in a country otherwise built around cricket. Al Jazeera’s 2022 report on Kerala’s love of the World Cup gives the reasons locals offer: a wet climate that suits seven-a-side matches, a game that needs only a ball, and fishing communities with flexible hours. It also records the generational split. A Brazil supporter in Kozhikode said younger fans lean to Brazil because Argentina had not won since 1986, but that support for Argentina runs deeper.

Ahead of Qatar 2022, supporters in Pullavoor, in Kozhikode district, put up cut-outs in the Cherupuzha river. Onmanorama reported a 30-foot Messi, a 35-foot Neymar and a Ronaldo of roughly 50 feet. That’s super impressive. A local fan said the Ronaldo figure was a collective effort of football fans, not only of Ronaldo’s supporters. I think that sums up how the argument works there: it’s a rivalry, and also a shared project. FIFA tweeted a picture of them and Kerala’s chief minister thanked it for noticing.

Kolkata: when the man himself came

In December 2025 Messi finally arrived on a “GOAT Tour” of Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. In Kolkata, organisers unveiled a 70-foot statue of him holding the trophy. At Salt Lake Stadium, however, he was surrounded by officials and photographers and left after roughly 20 minutes. Fans who had paid heavily for tickets tore up seats and threw bottles, as Al Jazeera pictured it. The organiser was arrested, and West Bengal’s chief minister apologised, according to Wikipedia’s account, which cites contemporary reporting. It shows what happens when demand is bigger than the infrastructure to hold it.

Ronaldo has his own territory

None of this makes the region a Messi monopoly. The Pullavoor Ronaldo was the tallest of the three. In Dhaka, The Daily Star’s June 2026 report on “FIFA Goli” in Tikatuli describes portraits of Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar and Mbappé side by side, with rallies in Mirpur, Dhanmondi and Old Dhaka for many teams. Ronaldo’s brand travels on its own too: a short video in which he greets Bangladesh with “Salam Alaikum” went viral, per The Business Standard.

One plausible difference: Argentina and Brazil are the national teams people join, so Messi’s support can arrive packaged with a flag, while Ronaldo’s tends to come through the club and the individual. The two camps overlap, argue and sometimes share a river. I can’t tell you the size of either, and neither does any source I found.

Why a country without a team adopts one

Three reasons keep coming up in the reporting. First, television arriving just as Maradona did. Second, a cheap game that can be played on any ground. Third, in the Messi era, phones that put the same player in every pocket every week. Add that the national team offers little to cheer, and a borrowed team becomes the place identity goes.

That argument is the one this site exists for. Whoever you back, it needs somewhere to be counted. Cast a vote and the card you receive records your country, chosen by you. The site counts by country, so Bangladesh and India can show where they stand. Nothing here says which way they lean, and that’s the point.

Thank you 🙏

I hope you found this article helpful 🔥 If you’ve made up your mind, pick your side — $1 is one vote and every vote gets you a card. No prize, just bragging rights. You can follow @TheGoatDebateIO on X for more.