Some people believe soccer is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that. —Bill Shankly, Liverpool Football Club manager, 1959–1974
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I’m watching the FIFA World Cup.
I like soccer. It’s the “ballet of sports”—although its fans are nothing like the fans of ballet. Fans of ballet are like the fans of chess, golf, or shuffleboard.
Ballet fans are Stoical.
Quiet. Studious. Polite.
Ballet fans are not fanatics. Soccer fans are.
I like soccer. I’m a fan but not a fanatic.
Scottish soccer fans are fanatics. The English are fanatics. Argentines, Paraguayans, Brazilians, and Mexicans are fanatics. The Turks and Italians are fanatics. The French and Germans are fanatics. Cape Verdeans and Croatians, for heavens sake, are fanatics.
Every World Cup nation is rife with fanatical fans. Finding a nation that isn’t is like finding a temperate hockey fan. Even America has lost its head over the game.
Still, you might think Norwegian fans, of all people, would be temperate given their proximity to the Arctic circle, but you’d be wrong.
Think: Vikings!
Soccer arouses barbarians.
Soccer fans watch soccer the way the Romans watched Christians dodging lions in the Colosseum.
On the edge of their seats.
Biting their nails.
Waiting for the kill.
GOAL!!!!!!!!! Quick! Get me another beer!!
Soccer fans are Dionysian.
Exuberant. Ecstatic. Euphoric.
PASSIONATE.
Baseball fans are Apollonian.
Calm. Collect. Controlled.
RATIONAL.
Think: George Will.
I’m a baseball fan. Baseball fans are sane. Even the fanatics are sane.
Soccer fanatics are insane. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. Nothing in between. Life and death. But way more serious than that.
Soccer fanatics are having a lot of fun these days. I’m thinking of becoming one. I’m reviewing some reasons. Thus far, no luck. I’m still Apollonian.
As it turns out, thinking is not the way to get there. Reason is not the door. Fanaticism is beyond reason. It’s a field of dreams where love is madness and where madness unites the many into one.
You gotta leave reason, reservations, and self behind to join that party.
¡OLÉ!
