Surajit Sengupta, a football artist and a crowd-puller, dies at 71

Surajit Sengupta, the man who could “let the ball talk”, dominated Indian football in the 1970s with his unique style of wing-play, mixing the art of dribbling with speed and creating a spectacle. “To be a successful winger, you need to have a magajastra (weapon of the brain). You need to understand your time and space, which is just one side of the field, and at the same time, you must be aware of what others are doing. Because, as a winger, you must keep the heart of your team beating,” he often said, taking pride in his role as an attacking midfielder in a wide position. Sengupta’s heart stopped beating at a city hospital on Thursday, succumbing to Covid-19 and other related complications. The 71-year-old’s death came about a month after the passing of his teammate and another Indian football star of the 1970s, Subhas Bhowmick.

A day after Bhowmick’s death on January 22, Sengupta had to be taken to a hospital after being infected with the virus. However, his condition kept deteriorating and he had been on life support since Monday. He breathed his last around 2 in the afternoon. He is survived by his wife and son. “Surajit was a true artist who could let the ball talk. We have lost two gems of Indian football and my former teammates in a span of one month. I really don’t know how to describe this,” former India star Gautam Sarkar said.

Former India captain and goalkeeper Bhaskar Ganguly echoed the sentiment. “It’s sad that we don’t have video clippings from that era. This generation doesn’t know how great a player Surajit Sengupta was and how he used to create a spectacle with his sublime footwork,” Ganguly said. Having been groomed in Kidderpore Club, Sengupta joined Mohun Bagan in 1972 and moved to East Bengal two