KARACHI: The national flags of several countries participating in the upcoming FIFA World Cup flutter on top of a water tank that supplies a three-story building in Malir, a sprawling district in Pakistan’s southern Karachi port city where people have always taken tremendous interest in the sport.

While much of the rest of Pakistan has not recovered from the defeat of the national cricket team in the Twenty20 World Cup final in Melbourne, Australia, the residents of Siddique neighborhood in Malir have been adorning their streets with portraits of football players ahead of the tournament in Qatar.

“The team that has the maximum fans [among us] has the biggest and highest flag here,” 30-year-old Muhammad Ali told Arab News while pointing at the Brazilian flag. “We love football to the level of craziness, and this is how we express it.”

Ali added the football’s biggest tournament was celebrated like a festival in his settlement while curating the colorful walls of a street that had portraits of different players.

The FIFA World Cup, which will begin on Sunday, has even turned the least artistic residents of the neighborhood into painters. Many of them go to their workplaces during the day before beginning to paint to their heart’s content until late at night.

“My cousin Sajid and I do this,” said Makhdoom Murad, 28, while talking to Arab News. “We are not painters, but this is our hobby.”

As Murad and Sajid decided to decorate the main street in front of the neighborhood’s community center, young children in the area took inspiration as well and purchased brushes and colors to adorn their own streets with the faces of their favorite superstars.

“Our friends in the street, all young children, pooled in money to purchase paint [brushes and colors],” 17-year-old Abdul Karim said. “We paint until 1am or 2am at night. Sometimes we also do it during the day when we find time since we go to school as well.”

Muhammad Anas, a 12-year-old sports enthusiast, said he supported Argentina, though he also mentioned footballers from other countries while sharing the list of his favorite players.

“I like Ronaldo, Messi, Benzema, Muhammad Saleh, Neymar and Maradona,” he told Arab News.

Whenever the World Cup football begins, people of this town in Malir organize a carnival where they gather and support their favorite teams and players.
“We have more football fans in [this neighborhood of] Malir,” said Saif Ali, who plays the sport on local level. “When we started organizing this, those in other areas of Malir also began to arrange similar sports fairs.”

The residents of the area set up a big screen which also attracts soccer enthusiasts from Lyari, an old town in Karachi which is sometimes called “mini-Brazil.”

“The children you see here are crazy football fans. They support all the teams,” he added.