Football reminds us of something very important...

While we are watching the clumsy and frightening moves of the United States in world politics, which are finally destroying the existing world order, something quite the opposite has happened on the football field. The wonderful and majestic America was momentarily brought back to reality. It was football again - in all its glory.

photo: Pixabay

It all started with the words of the American head coach Mauricio Pochettino, who said at the pre-match press conference that he ‘wants to destroy Panama’. Yes, that's right: destroy and nothing else. The addition of ‘on the football pitch, of course’ did not help the situation much. It would seem that this was just a usual football arrogance. But how it fits into the modern context! The great and beautiful USMNT (as the national team is called in the US) goes on the field to destroy the opponent. To prove its greatness. This is very much in line with politics.

Fortunately, football is not about talking, it's about playing. In the 94th minute, Panama scored the only goal of the match, and all the magic, all the grandeur, all the chatter instantly dissipated. Because football, as it turned out, still works by the rules. In politics, you can do anything if you really want to. Here, everything is the same: there is a ball, there is an opponent, there are the usual simple rules. There is nothing you can do about that. And this brings us back to the topic of the value of our favourite game.

We are very used to downplaying the importance of football, looking for all sorts of disgusting little things in it. We are used to saying that football is not the same anymore. Some say that football is already dead. That the modern game is just piles of money and a shadow of its former glory. But it is precisely this football - so corrupt, so dishonest - that provides perhaps the last refuge for dreams. It is when the world around us is falling to pieces that modern football appears as an island of stability, common sense and almost forgotten normality.

The same Pochettino has previously said that the US could be the strongest nation in football in the next 5-10 years. Maybe. If you play on a game console, it can happen even faster. But here's the problem: football is a little more like reality. It is the game that drowns the ambitions of talkers and rewards those who work hard. How many millionaires have invested heavily in football clubs to satisfy their ambitions, and then, to the not always pleasant cheers of the fans, sold the clubs and fled from all the horrors of this game they don't understand!

It is incomprehensible to them precisely because it has rules. It is very old-fashioned and very idealistic by modern standards.

Speaking of the United States, I would also like to draw attention to a very interesting detail in the organisation of sports competitions in the United States and European football. As you know, in America they love private clubs for the elite: The NBA or NHL is a perfect example. A handful of financially successful franchises that make, to quote President Trump, a good television show. But it lacks depth and authenticity. We need to look to our football for that: there are transparent league pyramids, a great deal of attention to lower-level competitions, a spirit of romanticism in cup tournaments, and exceptional community involvement in small clubs. And many more beautiful things - because the paradigm of values is completely different. An Englishman would rather get soaked to the skin watching his team draw 0-0 in the 14th place match, sharing a stadium with a few hundred fans like him, than watch a polished broadcast of another clash of the titans surrounded by double billboards on a cushy sofa. This is because football has different values from its very first days. Football is not a show. It is a game that cultivates things that are familiar to all of us, but are somehow diminished in the modern world. There is a spirit of community, empathy in different experiences, mutual assistance, patriotism, the desire to become better, the ethics of honest work... there is a place for dreams. This is exactly what the world is gradually taking away from us.

If only we could have scored that late winning goal against Russia, who literally came to destroy us! No, we can't do that. In real life, thousands of people die, and we are not guaranteed victory in life, no matter how hard and honestly we work for it. Because this world has not grown the rule of law, but the rule of force. They pick up the ball with their hands, throw it into the net, and the referee says it’s a goal. This is the world.

That's why football is so important now. It demonstrates the existence of rules. Yes, maybe not in the offices of FIFA or UEFA, but the old rules still apply on the field. No matter how much we talk about corruption and the decline of our game, it still produces fairy tales like the one with Panama. There we see a reflection of our dreams and values. A reflection of the world that could be around us if there were rules. Football often relays our deep-seated longing for justice and order. And even if a village club in England never reaches the FA Cup final, the glow of Wembley still shines through in the early stages of the tournament. A glimmer of the Dream appears. And you are already reaching for it as close as you can. And in that confrontation with yourself, you become better. You find again those hidden pearls that are so comforting in our difficult times: the spirit of community, the spirit of honest struggle... All of them, it turns out, are still alive. And even if you don't raise the cup over your head, the knowledge that something is still functioning fairly somewhere is the most precious trophy.

...And now you are hoping that the 94th minute will come in your life too - the time when everything falls into place. And there is hope. And you fight. And you live.

That's probably why we still love football.