India, Oct. 2 -- By the time Brazil arrived in Kolkata, the city had already seen this spectacle before. When Lionel Messi came to India in 2011, the hysteria was impossible to miss. In 2008, when Diego Maradona came visiting, the excitement was almost physical. There were crowds outside hotels, curious onlookers at stadium gates, cameras everywhere, a sense that something extraordinary had descended on the city.

This was different.

Brazil, the five-time world champions, are in Kolkata to play India at the Salt Lake Stadium. It is a historic occasion for Indian football. Yet outside the stadium gates there were no great knots of curious spectators. At the team hotel, where Carlo Ancelotti and Marquinhos held a marathon press conference ...