Football will continue

English: 116 Clique on DWYL Tour 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Because my to-do list is not full enough of things which are neither urgent nor important I subscribe to The Guardian’s daily e-mail about football.

It’s called the Fiver because it’s meant to arrive at about five o’clock, and when I first saw it the question that came to mind was: How on earth is there enough new to provide a daily update on football? Well, a couple of weeks ago they really struck something by explaining themselves. Here’s a brief quote:

…right now only one thing seems certain: despite repeated Fiver campaigns, football will never stop. Every second of every day for the rest of your life, there will be a happening of football going on, some story, some outrage, some brouhaha. At the exact moment you die, many years from now, football will be happening somewhere. And in the moments after your death football will just keep happening, all over the place, horribly vital, fresh storms and spats and swoops and sagas brewing up even as your eyes close for the last time and light begins to fade, and the last sight or sound your senses are aware of is a sensational swoop for a 13-year-old Peruvian wonderkid, or a managerial reshuffle in Russia, or a man saying a thing about another thing solely because he was asked a question by a man whose job it is to ask questions and thereby create out of thin air some football to happen.

Now what’s really depressing about that quote is that it’s actually true. And not just true about football, but true about all sorts of things. Other things that will simply roll on into the future, with or without us, include such joys as politics and soap operas, and thinking about this reminds me that we only live once.

When my eyes are preparing to close for the last time will I be thinking about the possibility of a Peruvian wonderkid becoming a world-famous footballer, or will I be reflecting on a life well-lived and a legacy left behind me?

Don’t.

Waste.

Your.

Life.

Paid exactly the right amount

 

Cristiano Ronaldo during the friendly match Portugal-Argentina, in Geneva, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Aren’t the Euros fun? No, not that pile of coins that’s soon going to be swapped back for the currencies they originally came from, I’m talking about arguably the best football tournament in existence. Where the World Cup has some better teams in it (O! The joys of Brazil and Argentina) it also tends to have some really weak teams to fill in the space, so the Euros can be far tighter, and more enjoyable for that reason.

But something that’s more frustrating than fun is the way that it highlights how horrifically wealthy it’s possible to get based on the equivalent of rolling a dice or tossing a coin. If you’re a boy born in the right area to the right parents and pull off the right football move at the right time in front of the right people you might end up playing Premier League football; if any one of those is missing, there’s no chance.

Let’s take Cristiano Ronaldo as an example. There’s no denying the fact that he is a phenomenally gifted footballer. He’s fast and delightfully skilful, which is a joy to watch until you remember that this guy is paid more in a week than most people earn in a decade. And he doesn’t even come across as a nice (or even grown-up) person, which makes the whole thing worse!

But in our capitalist society this is fine, isn’t it? I remember seeing an interview with David James several years ago in which he said that he didn’t think football players were overpaid because that was simply the way that the money in sport was apportioned; a receptionist at Manchester United should get paid a similar amount to receptionists elsewhere, and football players’ salaries are simply reflective of the money they bring into the club through tournament victories, ticket sales and advertising. It might not be ‘fair’ in terms of the financial amount, but it’s fair in terms of the concept. Thank you, Capitalism.

This isn’t just me going on about communism again, I want to highlight that for Christians this should be an encouragement. In eternity our wages will not be the wages of sin (death) but the wages reflective of who we are in Christ: perfect in every way. Actually, it’s not ‘fair’ that we should receive the reward designed for the Son of God but that’s the whole point, it’s called grace!

So I’m going to continue enjoying the spectacle of men acting like boys and being paid millions to do it because it reminds me of the grace I am to receive.

And, also, it is very entertaining.

Football = frustrating

Image via Wikipedia

For a start, I’m talking here about football. That’s the sport in which 90% of the time the ball is touched by the foot.

The rules of football are that the team who scores the most goals within 90 minutes wins the game, and the other team gets nothing. Traditionally in a league you’d get 3 points for a win, and nothing for a loss.

That’s cool, but sometimes you can play exceptionally well for 89 minutes, be in complete control of the game and have scored a goal, but then there’s one bad referee decision, or one defensive mistake, and the game is drawn, or worse, lost. It’s great if you’re the team who ends up on top, but for the loser there would barely be any difference between that result and if your entire team had pulled up a set of chairs and relaxed until the final whistle. The other team would still get 3 points, and you’d still get nothing.

Not to overthink this, but has football therefore become less of a sport than an art form? The purpose of football nowadays is overwhelmingly to entertain rather than to provide a competitive arena in which to demonstrate one team’s superiority…

Maybe it doesn’t really matter.