Brazil friendly: Salt Lake turf putting best foot forward to host Seleção

• Salt Lake pitch transformed ahead of Brazil’s 3 October friendly against India after concerns over playing surface

• Brazilian turf expert Ivan Nascimento spent a month addressing uneven soil, surface waves and overgrown grass

• Stadium’s heavy usage since 2017 has taken a toll; Brazil and India to train on the match pitch on Friday

The lush green surface at the Salt Lake Stadium — which has been under the watchful eye of a posse of media personnel over the past few days — now looks the part for a major international football fixture. It needs to. Come Saturday, 3 October, the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan will host five-time world champions Brazil against India in a historic FIFA friendly.

With the Brazilian team scheduled to arrive in Kolkata on Thursday evening, albeit without Barcelona star Raphinha, who returned home from Australia after picking up a niggle, attention has increasingly turned to the pitch.

A Confederation of Brazilian Football (CBF) delegation that visited Kolkata in August had reportedly expressed concerns about the playing surface as well as the training facilities. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) moved quickly, asking the CBF to provide an expert to help get the pitch into shape.

Ivan Nascimento, owner of Arenas Grass in Brasilia, was subsequently brought in and has been working on the Salt Lake surface for the past month. His verdict now is that the pitch is "near perfect".

Speaking to Sportstar, Nascimento explained the work involved. "Our main goal was to regularise the processes and the soil. We found some unevenness in the soil, with waves on the surface, and the grass was also very tall. We started with the agronomic work and then moved on to coordinating the operations so that we could transform this field into a standard international playing field," he said.

The urgency was understandable. Top footballing nations are notoriously particular about playing surfaces, and Brazil head coach Carlo Ancelotti had already expressed his frustration with the pitch at the Queensland Country Bank Stadium in Townsville during the team's first friendly in Australia.

The hybrid surface, a combination of synthetic fibre and natural grass, deteriorated during Brazil's 1-1 draw against Australia, with players from both sides repeatedly slipping and losing their footing. "It was difficult to play on a pitch like this and we hope to have a better pitch in the next game," Ancelotti had said.

Brazil subsequently bounced back in their second friendly on Tuesday, beating Australia 4-2 at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.

The Salt Lake Stadium itself has had to endure a demanding workload. Its last major overhaul came nearly a decade ago, when the playing surface was changed from artificial AstroTurf to natural Riviera Bermuda grass ahead of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in 2017, in line with FIFA guidelines.

Since then, the stadium has been heavily used, hosting home matches of Kolkata's Indian Super League (ISL) clubs, the Durand Cup and virtually every major international football engagement in the city.

A month may appear a short window in which to overhaul a football pitch, but Nascimento said he was accustomed to working under such constraints. "I own a company called Arenas and we work at the Mane Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia. We don’t have a resident club at our stadium, so we don’t host many football matches — only about 20 a year," he said.

The match protocol will put further emphasis on the surface. There will be no separate training pitch for either side. Brazil will train on the main pitch on Friday from 4.00-5.00 pm, followed by India from 6.00-7.00 pm.

The real test, however, comes on Saturday, when the freshly prepared surface will get its first examination under the spotlight — and against one of world football's most celebrated teams.

Meanwhile, Uruguay, or the Celeste, arrived in Kolkata on Wednesday evening ahead of their second friendly against India on 6 October.