Life Is A Football Pitch – Enjoy Every

Moment

They say football is the ballet of the masses. There is no other way to describe a
game that has legions of fans all over the world, something that the World Cup
bears testimony to. And the fan following is by far the most passionate of any
sport. Some have literally sacrificed everything for the game – spent all their life
savings to faithfully support their teams on tour and even had families walk out
on them. Their love for football supersedes all else. What is it that makes football
so beautiful, so fascinating, and so seductive?

There is something really simple and inherently natural about football that
anyone, no matter which part of the world he comes from or what language he
speaks, can relate to. Little wonder that football is the most popular sport in the
world. You don't even need to know the rules of the game to play.

Football is the game that teaches you all the dos and don'ts. As soon as the
rotund rubber bladder is placed at your feet, you know what to do. It is precisely
this that the planners of this year's World Cup had in mind when they christened
the tournament ball `Jabulani', the Zulu word meaning `to celebrate'.

At the same time, football is much more than just kicking around and chasing a
ball. It is a game that has honour, respect, courage, teamwork and discipline as
its fundamental values.

French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus, a goalkeeper in his youth, had

acknowledged that it was football that taught him everything about morality and
duty. Camus's analysis stems from the fact that the camaraderie that one
experiences on being a part of a football team, the sense of shared grief in loss
and joy in victory, provides for great learning and wisdom.

The game of football itself is a metaphor for life, a constant struggle between free
will and the unpredictable forces of destiny.

Just as in life, the number of variables in a game of football is huge.

To predict an outcome not only would we have to take into account the
performances of each of the 22 players on that given day, but also consider
external factors such as wind, liveliness of the pitch, flight of the ball, and team
tactics, to name a few.

There are so many unknowns that a football game is not unlike the mysteries of
the universe. Not even the best brains have been able to come up with a unified
formula that explains everything in the cosmos.
The contradiction between classical physics on the one hand and quantum
physics on the other continues to haunt us. Scientists have failed to marry the
two effectively and come up with a universal theory of everything.

It is here that football might have an answer. For, like in life, contradictions reign
supreme in football only to be intermittently superseded by moments of brilliance
when opposing forces align to produce perfect symphony.

And what fans experience is blissful harmony when a player is able to see
through obstacles, defy the unknown, take a risk and produce a spark of genius
to achieve his goal. It is then that we realise that life is a football pitch and we
ordinary mortals are connected to the music of the cosmos through the rhythm of
the beautiful game.