The Feast and Fiesta of Football

It's another day of leave for me and I'm here at the mall, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, and soaking in the cheerful Christmas season vibe. I love the month of December because it is year-end and the month of Christmas, which is my favourite festival (even though I don't celebrate it).

We're also in the middle of the Football World Cup fever now, with all the knock-out matches for the last 16 already played. Quarter-finals will resume tomorrow. I don't exactly have a favourite team for this World Cup, but I find myself rooting for the underdog. Morocco did a good job the other day, knocking out Spain through penalty-kicks to book their place in the quarterfinals, where they will play a resurgent Portugal.

Why is the world crazy about football? It is by far the most popular sport worldwide. Part of the reason for its popularity is its simplicity and it's also the cheapest game to play, especially for kids in poorer countries.

I used to play a lot of football when I was a kid. There's always someone in the neighbourhood owns a ball, and that is sufficient unleash 20 over scrawny kids to chase over it in some patch of grass on someone's backyard. I wasn't very good at it in the beginning. But that changed once I got hold of a book by George Best, where I learned the proper techniques on how to use different parts of the feet to perform different types of kicks. After I mastered them, I leapfrogged over my fellow playmates in school. 

There's always a kind of macho one-upmanship among the boys of our age then: those who were football-challenged on the pitch were labelled 'kaki bangku' (stool-legged).  During school Physical Education lessons, we were happiest when the teacher would just throw us a ball and allow us to play among ourselves for the whole session.  There is always the one kid, who would love to hog the ball, showing off his dribbling skills and the rest of us would shout 'jangan goreng' in annoyance.

I wasn't much of a dribbler, preferring the freedom of space in the wings. So I fashioned myself as a winger with a penchant for charging to the touchlines and delivering the most delicious of crosses into the penalty box. My crosses were much admired, with some of my team-mates even calling them 'world class'. 

I knew how to curl the ball perfectly and had developed great accuracy with my lethal left foot. I had scored many long-range goals, curling and placing the ball perfectly right under the crossbar in the top corner.  I was quite obsessed with the game then, every door frame became goalposts to me, and ever object on the floor, the incidental ball. I would imagine how I would approach the 'ball', and place it beyond the imaginary goalkeeper of the doorframe.

Football was utter joy for us. The soccer field was where we were happiest, because we felt free chasing up and down the green. Being an amateur player helped me to understand and appreciate football as a game much better. People who do not like football often say that the game is boring because matches do not often produce many goals. But they are simply missing the whole point of football completely. 

A football match is not only about goals but about every little movement and activity of the players: it is watching how beautiful a pass is, how much curl is in the flight of the ball, and how well a player controls it, and how masterfully he gets pass a defender, and how satisfyingly accurate a shot is struck, placing it just inside the post, beyond the outstretched hands of the keeper. A football match is a collection of artistic duels and displays by 22 athletic performers. Goals are just the icing on the cake.

But why are are football supporters so fanatical about their favourite team? That's the psychological part of the game. Football gives everyone a chance to be a part of something larger--it is acceptance into a tribe. As long as you are acquainted with all the players, watched all their matches and had paid your dues suffering the pain of their defeats, you are part of the family. You've earned your right to celebrate the joys of their victories as exuberantly and as ecstatically as you wish. 

Our everyday life doesn't give us the kind of emotional highs that football does. When your team wins it is your victory but when they lose, yes you'll sulk for a while, but it is not exactly your personal loss. Your pain is diluted by the shared suffering of fellow supporters. The joy of victory on the other hand, is amplified by being a part of the community.   

Football provides humans with an opportunity to be hunter-gatherers again, working together to slay a beast and sharing the spoils. It is something that's primal and hardwired in our genes. While modern world is  increasingly condemning us to a sedentary life in front of a computer screen, living our virtual lives in metaverses, football yanks us out of all that. 

Football plants out feet on the ground, making us feel the earth and its gravity, reconnecting us with the the cooperative and competitive instinct within us. And every 4 years we get together to celebrate this basic humanity of ours, in that marvellous feast and fiesta of football that is the World Cup.

The Lost World

I remember a whole without TV, without the Internet, without cellphones. Was it a better world then?

I read a lot as a child because my parents had a lot of books and encouraged me to read; my neighbours read; my friends in school read. To me reading was like breathing, eating and sleeping--it was something natural, something that everyone did.

It was only when I entered the university that I realized how wrong I was.

As a child, I was also fanatical about football. I used to wake up early in the morning, before the sun rose, to play football with my friends. I even recorded the team list and details about all the goals scored in every match we played in a dog-eared exercise book, which I still keep.

I played barefoot for many years before I saved enough money to buy myself a pair of second-hand Puma boots. I remember paying 25 bucks for it, and I still keep that pair of boots back home.

I used to take penalties for my team, because I was good at it. I had a very accurate shot. I spent many hours practicing how to place the ball just inside the goalpost. Most of the time I aim to hit the inside of the upright--if you hit it at that very sweet spot, not even the best goalkeeper in the world could save it. I knew the basics of soccer better than many of my friends because I had learned them properly--from books.

Yes, it was a world without the Internet, without cellphones, without satellite TV. But I had friends who read and friends who shared my passion for soccer--Malays, Chinese and Indian friends. It was heaven to me.

It's a different world now. I spend my days and nights staring at a computer screen. I attend meetings. I listen to podcasts while I'm driving. And I watch EPL matches beamed live to my living room.

I have more books than I could ever read in my lifetime. Why did I buy so many books? Why do I have to suffer the pain and joy of watching Liverpool play every weekend?

I know now: It is to recapture that world which I had lost.