life is a football pitch

8/8/2019 Life is a Football Pitch

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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 outon 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.

life is a football pitch

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