In Bengal there are two poets whose family is considered above all others: Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Now, with full awareness of the absurdity of the matter, one might have to add a third name to the footnotes: Ahnaf Hussain, Ph.D.Hussain, a New Yorker of Bangladeshi descent, became a social media sensation after chanting: “My baptism is a Muslim, my cake is a Jew, Christian Dior, Knicks on four.” Now this isn’t Gitanjali or Bidrohi, but it certainly united the people of New York and, by extension, all the members of the world order who feel like they actually live in New York because they’ve memorized every episode of Friends and How I Met Your Mother.
However, he didn’t quite become the Knicks in Game 3, as superstitious sports fans blamed Donald Trump’s attendance at Madison Square Garden in Game 3, so the chant had to be updated: “My mayor’s still a Muslim, my cake’s still a Jew.”
Pope is on our side and Knicks is on five.Now, while this may seem like poetic licence, America’s first pope was seen giving a thumbs up when a fan shouted: “Pope Leo, go Knicks.” The Pope, who shares an alma mater with three members of the Knicks’ current lineup, also signed a T-shirt for mega Knicks fan Spike Lee that had the word “Pope Leo” written on the back, leading some to wonder if the Knicks had divine help, more so since Game 4 of the Finals featured a miraculous 29-point comeback.
But the conversation has now turned to another kind of sports myth: the Mamdani effect. While Mamdani’s influence may seem like a boost for progressive causes since the election of New York’s first Muslim mayor, it is actually what The Athletic called Zahran Mamdani’s sporting summer, after two of his teams, Arsenal and the Knicks, ended a historic title drought.The Arsenal last won the league in 2004, and the Knicks last won the NBA title in 1973, and even that joke connection was too much for Fox News, which wrote: “You might think, then, that the credit for these teams’ accomplishments would go to the players, coaches, front-of-house staff and office staff.
But this means a level of awareness and rationality that many within left-wing sports media institutions do not possess.
While one can see why Fox would be upset, especially since the only game the Knicks lost was when Donald Trump was in attendance, and one of the octogenarian’s greatest resentments was that the city he grew up in never accepted him, the Mamdani effect has become a buzzword for sports fans. In strict, unscientific terms, this is the belief that a socialist New York mayor, simply by supporting a team, can reverse decades of sporting misery.
This is clearly nonsense, and that’s exactly why sports fans will believe it.
The city’s young mayor certainly took to heart, turning up at Eid wearing a full Arsenal-themed kurta and telling people who came up to him chanting that he was a Muslim that “it’s true”.Sports fans have always believed some strange myths over the years, including yours truly.Cricket fans have been known to go completely catatonic when Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli bat, putting them at risk of contracting a bladder infection rather than running to the toilet.
At the World Cup finals, the Democratic Republic of the Congo took on a superfan who they believe has the supernatural power to stop goals with his gesture of standing still like a human statue for 90 minutes with his arm raised in tribute to Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.Meanwhile, some believe Italy’s inability to reach the World Cup finals again is a sign of the “Curse of Sarajevo”, a reference to a rather dark moment in the country’s history when Italian tourists allegedly signed up for “sniper safaris” to shoot innocents during the war in the 1990s.
Incidentally, in 2026, Italy lost on penalties to Bosnia and Herzegovina.There’s also the curse of the Nike World Cup, where a famous ad featuring the top stars of the time led to many of them failing. Didier Drogba broke his arm, England’s national team led by Wayne Rooney failed, Ronaldinho did not participate in the tournament, and Italy, the defending world champion led by Fabio Cannavaro, was eliminated from the group stage.
And across the Atlantic, the Madden curse has become the great credo of video games in America: put an NFL star on the cover and wait for his season to end.But it all takes us back to Mamdani’s summer, and it would be the icing on the cake if his team ends up winning. No, not the United States, which was eliminated in the quarterfinals by England. He supported Morocco to win the World Cup by defeating France in the final. If that actually happens, and Africa gets its first World Cup winner, even the most scientific minds will find it difficult to argue against Mamdani’s influence.
