I was never interested in sports, nor was anyone in my family, till 2010.

One fine morning I woke up and discovered my neighbourhood’s skyline had changed almost overnight. The rooftops, verandas and the shops, wherever I looked, I saw flags.

Not all of them were plain flags even, many had portfolio pictures of star players of that team. Some die-hard fans even printed their own photos and attached them side by side with the players. Beneath the banner, in bold colours, there would often be a writing declaring who they are; something like “আর্জেন্টিনা/ব্রাজিল সমর্থক গোষ্ঠী” ("Supporters of Brazil/Argentina.")

Wherever I went, in tea stalls, flexi-load shops, or grocery stores, Shakira’s Waka Waka or K’naan’s Wavin’ Flag would be playing.

In Bangladesh, thousands of miles away from South Africa where the tournament was actually taking place, the FIFA World Cup had arrived with all its colour, life and festivity.

I was in the seventh standard at the time. At school, my friends had already split into two camps – Argentina and Brazil.

Usually, no one in my class ever bothered to read the newspapers. But once the World Cup began, we’d wake up early, grab the newspaper before picking up our toothbrush, and memorise every football-related piece we could find.

At school, we'd quiz each other on who knew the most. Messi's height, Ronaldo's girlfriends, what Kaká's wife looked like, we had it all memorised.

My friends dug through drawers, nagged their parents, and somehow conjured up handmade diaries. They filled the pages with newspaper cuttings of their favourite players and scrawled colourful "I love you" messages beneath the photos.

A few hopelessly dramatic girls even carved the initials of their favourite players into their arms with coloured pens (mostly M, K, and R), since tattoos were out of the question.

I wanted to join in on the festivity, and one day the opportunity came to me from an unexpected source.

I found an Argentina flag in my house.

It was probably left behind by the previous residents, some bachelors who used to live in that apartment before we moved in.

It was an old, worn-out flag, wrongly proportioned, with too much blue and too little white.

But I didn’t care, to me it was perfect.

I was overjoyed to find the flag, as nobody in my house would ever buy me one. Now I could officially join in the craze.

I washed the dirty, old flag with detergent and soap until it looked brand new, and proudly hung it from a window in front of our house for the world to see.

I don’t know how many people noticed my flag out of the sea of flags, but one person definitely did – Baba.

That evening, he saw it while returning home, and immediately knew that it had to be my doing.

He didn’t react initially, just silently observed it. That night at the dinner table, he asked, "So, you support Argentina?"

"Yes," I answered proudly.

He frowned.

"Why?"

I froze.

The truth was, I didn't support anyone. We simply happened to have an Argentina flag lying around the house. If I'd found a Brazil flag instead, I'd have hung that one.

Looking at my guilty face, Baba laughed. "Did your classmates tell you to put it up?"

In my family, no one used to talk back to Baba, other than me. I never hesitated to argue with him. With him questioning my loyalty for Argentina, there was no way I would take it quietly.

"No! I did it myself. Argentina plays well."

"Who told you Argentina plays well?" he replied. "Germany, France, Spain, those are good teams. Support them."

I narrowed my eyes. "How would you know? I've never seen you watch football. All you ever watch is wrestling," I said, twisting my face.

Baba was an incredibly timid man. If a tyre burst somewhere down the road, he'd immediately rush home and close every door and window. Whenever a fight broke out at Riazuddin Bazar, where he ran his business, he'd come straight home and wouldn't return until things had cooled down.

Somehow, this same timid man would spend hours lying in bed, watching WWE on our old broken television, looking on with glee as men built like tanks fought aggressively. No one else in my house ever turned on that broken television except him, and all he watched was wrestling.

Everyone laughed about it behind his back. I laughed right in front of him, and never missed a chance to tease him.

Since both of us were now apparently very serious about football, we decided our ancient, broken television had to go.

I marched into the kitchen with our proposal to buy a new television and demanded that my mother pay half. She exploded before I'd even finished the sentence.

"If your father wants one so badly, let him buy it himself! I'm not giving a single taka."

After hearing everything, Baba assured me that he'd convince her.

He couldn't.

He bought the television with his own money.

Baba tried to teach me football, but I rarely listened. Germany was his favourite team. We'd stay up all night watching matches together, each pretending to be an expert.

Thanks to my friends and the newspapers, I actually knew quite a lot by then, although almost all my knowledge revolved around players' favourite foods, their heights, and the names of their girlfriends.

That house was heaven for mosquitoes. Staying up till 3 in the morning, we became their fodder. We lit coils, tried every mosquito repellent cream and spray alike. But they never left.

For some mysterious reason, mosquitoes hardly ever bit me. Baba was their favourite.

"They bite you too," he insisted. "You just don't notice."

Whenever the power went out during a match, we'd immediately take our frustration out on each other. Our arguing would wake my mother, and then both of us would be in trouble.

Whenever Argentina played, it felt like a special occasion. We would always have snacks ready before kickoff. I never asked my dad to buy chips or chocolates, and he never did. He would tell me to mix chanachur with muri. We'd sit together, munching on that while watching the match. That was the tradition.

If Argentina conceded, Baba would glance sideways at me with a smug little smile.

Whenever Argentina scored, I'd return the exact same smile.

I never dared start any argument or make any faces when Germany was playing.

Then came the inevitable day. Argentina versus Germany in the quarterfinal.

Baba was thrilled. He sat down, absolutely convinced he was about to crush my confidence forever.

I loudly declared, imitating Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s tone, "We've scored before, we'll score again. Inshallah, we'll beat Germany!"

After Argentina conceded two goals, all my enthusiasm disappeared. I lost my voice. I watched his little victorious smile for a while, then he switched off the TV without finishing the match and ordered me to go to bed. He spared me from seeing my team lose 4-0.

The next morning, Baba quietly went outside, took down the Argentina flag, came back in, handed it to me, and said, "Here. Keep it safely. You'll put it up again next time."

That day my Brazil-supporting friends came to school carrying sweets in their lunchboxes to celebrate. My fellow Argentina fans cursed them in anger and heartbreak. I happily ate the sweets. My fellow Argentinians called me shameless.

After both Brazil and Argentina were out, something magical happened. All the conflict dissolved. We all suddenly became Spain supporters. My friends collectively discovered that maybe Messi and Kaká weren't the most handsome footballers after all—Casillas and Villa deserved that title.

When the World Cup finally ended, we were genuinely heartbroken. Not because football was over. Because now we had to go back to the same old boring studies.

Football fever came with a jump but went off gradually. My classmates still carried their diaries and kept updating them for some time, then with exams around the corner, they stopped.

For a few days afterward, I tried staying up with Baba to watch wrestling out of habit. Then one night he scolded me for staying up late. I was so angry, I decided that from then on, I'd go to bed at 10:00 PM sharp. Every night at ten o'clock, I'd pretend to be asleep and avoid conversing with him.

Since then, every four years, the cycle has repeated itself. One day I wake up and, all of a sudden, discover flags hanging everywhere.

The World Cup has returned in 2026. Nilkhet and other markets are blanketed in posters bearing proud smiling photos of Argentina and Brazil supporter groups. The quality of the posters has gotten better every four years.

My building has many flags hanging, and none of them are disproportioned.

New songs keep coming out, but to me, none have surpassed 2010’s Wavin’ Flags.

Somehow, no other World Cup has felt like that World Cup.

I have some serious football-loving friends now, and sometimes we watch matches together, but all they do is recite statistics and facts and finish all the chips before the match even gets started.

No one is writing names on their wrists with colourful pens anymore. I wonder if any school kids carry diaries the way we did.

Now mosquitoes have gotten much more powerful, and they do bite me for real.

The funny arguments, the heated conversations, the small fights over nothing are still here. But somewhere along the way, the drama slipped out.

I miss all of it, but the thing I miss the most are those football nights my father and I shared.

I miss you, Baba.

***Originally published in Bangla in 2014 on Shamprotik.com.***