Those moments that make life worth living…
Some of you who know me might know that I’m a passionate supporter of the beautiful game known as football, or to those of you who already reserved that name for a sport where you run around with a “ball” in your hands, soccer. Most of you probably didn’t know though, because I tend not to mention it here on my blog, since I know that most of the people that read it care more about the other things that interest me. Today though, I am using football as a starting point for a post of a more personal nature.
Those of you who actually follow the game, will already know what inspired this post by looking at the image above. Manchester United, the only team for me, played AC Milan in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals today. It all started great, and we went one up early. Unfortunately for us though, three quarters of our starting defence line-up are out with injuries. Milan player Kaka, truly a world class player I might add, knew to take advantage of this, and by half time we were trailing Milan by a goal, thanks to sloppy defending and a few moments of magic by the mentioned Kaka.
The second half however, turned everything around. For most parts of the half, we owned them. Yet it looked like we weren’t going to get the win, partly because we didn’t create enough chances, and partly because we didn’t convert the chances we got. When it was seemingly over however, and most of us had settled with the draw, that moment came. I don’t know if it was the almighty God of football that decided to bestow each and every United fan with a touch of magic, but I do know that if it was, it was a clever move, because it’s moments like these that can make a person religious. From nothing Ryan Giggs won the ball on our half, ran with it forever, then passed it to Wayne Rooney who just hammered it into the net. 3-2. We’re up. We’re it. We’ve won!
Just as that happened, nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that we’re still 90 extremely hard minutes of playing time in Italy away from the final. It didn’t matter that even if we get through to the final, we still haven’t won crap this season. All of that didn’t matter in that moment, because the only thing you can feel in that little moment is joy, pleasure, happiness, and that’s why I love football. For those small moments that lets you forget about all the things in this world that suck. - I know that to some people who don’t follow the game, this might sound atrocious. But I want you to think about it for a moment, does it matter? No it doesn’t. For us football fans, the only thing that can bring us these moments are when our own team does well, or if you’re a player, when your team does well. It doesn’t matter what your team is, the feeling will always be the same, whether you’ve just won the first leg of the Champions League semi-final, or just barely avoided relegation from the second lowest to the lowest division in the amateur league.
And such, my claim is that it doesn’t matter what brings you these moments of joy, be it football, or something completely different. But for a lot of us (just look at all the fans in the background of the picture, they will all agree with me), heck even billions of us, football is a source for those moments. And that my friends, is the single most important reason why football is the greatest game ever played, and the most widely followed sport in the world. The tension, the passion, the huge disappointments, but most of all those rare, magic moments that makes all the disappointments worthwhile. It’s also why people like myself and all of my friends on my team spend hours and hours of life training, playing, thinking and worrying about football. We don’t get paid to do it. We don’t get women surrounding us because we do it (like we need it). We don’t get idolized because we do it. We just do it because we love it, and we love those few and far between moments that makes all of it worthwhile.
To finish up all of this, I would like to ask all of you, my readers, what are your sources for these moments that makes you forget all the bad things, if just for a single second? I’m sure all of you have experienced them, and I sincerely hope that you treasure them. No matter how trivial they might seem when you, or anyone else for that matter, tries to put them into perspective, it really doesn’t matter, as long as it makes you happy.