For a few minutes in the bitter embers of a lifeless first half, the football pitch — and the events occurring on it — was relegated solemnly to the spectator’s peripheral vision. It’s not like the game unfolding out in the middle was enthralling or any such. But still. At this point, in the 34th minute of the game, David Trezeguet — Pune City FC’s big signing — could’ve streaked across the Jawaharlal Nehru field and few would’ve cared to even notice.

For, by the touchline, Alessandro Del Piero, the Indian Super League’s biggest crowd—puller, had begun yanking off his fluorescent bib.

It sent raptures through the crowd, who instantly orchestrated the chanting of his name. Or half his name, to be precise. ‘Piero, Piero!’ the stands rang, quite in the tune of a chant reserved for a cricketing god — the first ‘Piero’ stretching out the syllables, the second curt and quick.

It’s safe to assume that the Italian, standing by the fourth official and waiting his turn to take the pitch, had never heard anything like it before. And it’s also safe to assume that he perhaps had no idea just how great an impact he was going to have on uplifting the quality of the game unfolding disastrously ahead.

“Del Piero manages to have an immediate impact,” Fabio Capello, once Juventus’ manager in the previous decade, had said when asked why he wouldn’t start with Del Piero more often. “He doesn’t need time to become an important factor in the game. Not many players can do that so effectively.”

Delhi Dynamos’ coach, Harm van Veldhoven, perhaps had the same idea, inserting his number 10 in the 36th minute, in place of his ailing forward Morten Skoubo. For the first four minutes, though, immediate impact failed to happen. For Del Piero didn’t touch the ball.

Either the attempts at a pass from his team-mates were Sisyphean in nature or he was simply crowded out by the opposition. Still, change had well and truly occurred; now 21 other men and a solitary ball were gravitating towards him. Then, in the 40th minute, 240 seconds after first being ushered in, Del Piero received his first touch of the ball. And that contact of bladder and body was made by, well, his bladder.

THE FIRST TOUCH

From the inside-right, Naoba Singh, Delhi’s right back, found his man standing with his back to the opposition’s goal. Naoba chipped it higher than he would’ve liked to, but Del Piero was unconcerned. After all the build-up to this league, to which he is chief brand ambassador, the 39-year old was just happy playing ball again. So he shook off his markers and collected the pass with his stomach, dropping it limp on to his right toe.

Then, without as much as turning around, Del Piero swung his right foot over and around his stationary left and found team-mate Shouvik Ghosh directly behind him. The terraces combusted with delight, thrilled with the genius on display. But here’s the problem with genius; not many can wrap their heads around it. Del Piero’s first touch had caught the opposition unaware, quite like it did Ghosh. Not expecting a pass from such an implausible angle, a startled Ghosh promptly lost the ball not long after he had found it. Correction, after it had found him.

Thirty seconds on, there was yet another flare of wizardry. Finding himself just on the edge of the box, Del Piero wrangled possession of the ball from the confused feet of a Pune defender, only to nutmeg him and stop just inside the crowded D. Then, with an easy flick, he sent both the ball and midfielder Hans Mulder (a spitting image of Raul Meireles from a distance) into space. Only, Mulder ain’t no Meireles and wasn’t up to task. He shanked it from where he shouldn’t have, the whistle blew and Del Piero held his head.

Plenty of heads were clutched in the stands as well. Fans, especially in metropolitans such as New Delhi, had arrived in droves, expecting the quality they see week-in, week-out on the telly. But what they got, at least before Del Piero arrived, was a different version of the I-League; the difference being the addition of an emcee and a few more advertising hoardings. And what they got after the Italian’s arrival was the gulf in class between us and them, albeit ‘them’ in this case being a semi-retired-nearly-40-year-old man.

Eventually, us wore them down. Del Piero cut a frustrated figure in the second half as more of his genius was destroyed soon after creation. No heads were at the end of his corners, no feet at the end of his crosses and no twos at the end of his ones. In the end, he looked with yearnful eyes at Trezeguet — the only other man on the field who could perhaps understand what Del Piero was going through, despite being dressed in the opposition’s colours.

All evening long, Trezeguet had lurked in the shadows of Delhi’s defenders, hoping for a ball to poach into. It remained elusive as Godot, and so did the goals. So, ironically, two men with 346 Juventus goals between them, were involved in this league’s first goalless draw.