The author Vargas Llosa some years back wrote that a football match lacked the enduring uplifting, aesthetic qualities of a classical piece of music, not least in what affects intellect, imagination, heart and soul.
As a music lover and football fan I can think of symphonies and songs whose echo in my subconscious bring me to tears of joy or sadness, as well as matches memorable not because my team won, but because I saw football played nobly and creatively, turned into art form-poetry in motion- and because of the solidarity that involved team, manager, and fans.
As a fan of the Glory and Beautiful game, I take as my point of reference two comments which between them seem to pitch the game at diametrically perceived extremes of perception: Bill Shankly’s “people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” And Gary Lineker’s (circa 1990) “Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win.”
Shankly’s mantra is that of the obsessive. It is the banner behind which generations of fanatics, of one club or the other, have excused bigotry, confrontation, and abuse whose spill over beyond the stadium has fuelled violence in the street and on the domestic front. No sport is worth any of this.
On the other hand, recent Champions League games have served as a reminder that football is not simply about chasing a ball, it is about what you do with; it is also about human psychology; it is about style, and tactics and yes, luck. It shows human existence as it was defined by the Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gasset, “Myself and my circumstances.” Even Mourinho, post Chelsea’s semi-finals exit had to admit that even his own ego deserved a counterpoint.
My love for football means that I can grieve that my club FC Barcelona seems to have temporarily lost the creativity and motivation that won it such universal admiration. I can recognise and empathise with Pep Guardiola struggling to keep a focus so soon after his friend Tito Vilanova’s death. At the same time Guardiola’s Bayern showed the dangers of being fixed in a tactic of play and forcing it on players, rather than tailoring the tactics to the players.
I know that other Barca fans will accuse me of disloyalty, but as a lover of good football I am looking forward to the Champions League final. Real Madrid for the first time since Vicente Del Bosque it has a manager that is in engaged with his players, and can motivate a team ethos as well an individual brilliance. As for Diego Simeone’s Atletico de Madrid – it has managed to achieve what Barca seems to have lost, forging an exemplary sense of unity and purpose involving manager, team, and fans-while successfully outplaying great clubs on a much smaller budget. This is football at its best: not as a celebrity act, but shared human endeavour-passionate, respectful of opponents, and worthy of respect.
It’s the kind of football that Pope Francis, a fan himself, would I think be happy to bless. One of the phrases he has used to explain a transformative encounter that led to vocation as a priest is the Buenos Aires slang expression “nos primerea”. It’s a term often used by Argentines to talk of a good football move that ends in a goal- a move “that anticipates you”, “beats you to it.”
There have been some great moves, and good goals in the semi-finals of the Champions League worthy of being celebrated regardless of one’s club loyalties. At its best , football, like music, allows us to get in touch with our humanity, and in doing so, touch God’s finger.
