Football: A visceral experience of faith

It’s raining heavily, you’re practically drenched. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice your friend beat his man and immediately realize what he’s about to do. You sprint towards the far post, around an unaware marker, and just as your friend whips in a grounded cross, you slide. Ecstasy, every cell in your body screams in jubilation as you wheel around and are pummeled into the ground by your team mates screaming screams of unadulterated, unbridled joy. At that moment, you know what it means to be alive.

You often see your parents or spouse bemused at why you risk everything each time you play. They question your sanity every time you scream at the television when your team is playing. They write it off as an irrational obsession, an anomaly.

But is it? Deep down inside we often question it ourselves: is this passion merely serving to fill others pockets, is it simply just another drug? But then, you just know its far more than that. Football is more than just a game, it is an idea.

And idea that the sheer power of will, strength and work will make your most far-fetched fancies possible. That despite being weaker, slower or less skilled you can make it.It is blood sweat and pride, it is one goal. It is the willingness to stop at nothing to attain victory. Football is Life.

What is it that instigates this obsession? What drives to watch and play this “beautiful” game? Is it a mere blind worship of art? Or is it because in playing, watching and immersing ourselves in this realm we find an escape. An escape from the realities of a dull monotonous existence, an escape into a world of boundless energy, passion and joy.

And football clubs, why does one support them with an almost primordial perseverance? It is perhaps because these clubs embody the very values we ourselves stand for. “When you start supporting a football club, you don’t support it because of the trophies or the players or the history, you support it because you found yourself somewhere there; found a place where you belong” Dennis Bergkamp once said.

FIFA has more members than the United Nations. And the biggest religion on the planet isn’t a religion. The only thing that has more fans than Facebook is football. It is the global game, united in diversity. I believe in football. Do you?