You may have seen this extraordinary soccer World Cup finalperhaps the most beautiful of all.
With us, it was all for Argentina, for Messi and for other reasons too long to explain.
Why?
My passion and that of my friends cannot be explained by a lack of lucidity.
Alienation? Bread and games? It’s more complex.
We see the scandals, the corruption, the crazy salaries, the doping, the concussions, the cynical marketing, the numbing effect on vital social questions, etc.
But we keep coming back to it. Why?
Let’s say “my” team wins. It’s the players who really win. Not me. And yet…
I watch a clash between two teams that leave me indifferent and I will love if the match is of quality. Why?
What is this drug to which billions of humans are addicted, regardless of country, religion, social class or ideology?
Sport, when practiced by the greatest, offers moments of astonishing aesthetic beauty: a dribble by Messi, a backhand by Federer, a swing by Pujols, a one-handed catch by Odell Beckham.
During this moment, the pose reproduces the largest sculptures.
The brevity of the moment makes it precious and fragile.
Fleeting and futile, you might say. But why should everything be important and permanent?
Each match is also unique, like a theater performance, unlike a recorded song, which is always the same from time to time.
In a stadium, you witness something that will not come back. Recording takes away my pleasure.
Sport, from the spectator’s point of view, is also drama, but without danger. It’s not us who get dumped. We have the “thrill” without the risk.
Professional sport is also a nostalgic journey. We go back to the schoolyard, when we dreamed that one day we would play for the Canadian or Real Madrid.
The time of a match, we forget the office, the family, financial problems, or whatever.
The partisan finds himself part of a community, a gang, a kind of family.
He is not alone. The normal human cannot live alone. He is a social animal.
Passion
The victory of “his” team also gives a brief moment of pride to a worker who is often exploited or despised.
Professional sport creates, in the modest supporter, an illusion of equality: rich or poor, young or old, they have in common their devotion.
This is why pay channels or ultra-expensive tickets, by chasing away the poor, endanger the goose that lays the golden egg.
In a world where we are looking for benchmarks, your team becomes a stable point: it was there before you and will possibly be there after you.
This is no doubt why franchise moves are often experienced as bereavements.
We will therefore be choosy as much as we want, the passion is here to stay.
