What is it about football that makes guys forget about everything else? Put a guy in front of a TV screen showing some football, it doesn't matter what teams are playing or even if he's ever heard of them, the guy will sit there staring at the screen completely oblivious to everything else. Correction: He'll pay attention to the drink in front of them and whatever food you put there. Guys become like programmed robots, staring at the screen and in timed unison take gulps from the drinks and cram chips in their mouths. Occasionally, they'll grunt something incomprehensible to any woman and receive a similar grunt from the other men in response.
What gets to me is the constant obsession with football. I don't understand how they can watch game, after game, after game and not get bored. I understand watching games for teams that you support, but what about those other games? Men will still watch them, why I'll never know. Isn't it just a bunch of grown men running around after a ball? Where's the sense in that?
Of course it doesn't end there and why should it? If there are no games being played anywhere in the world right now, well we'll play our own game. Let's fire up the playstation and play some football (as if watching it all day long wasn't enough). And so they sit there, for some countless hours, playing match after match, of computer football. And of course, there's also fantasy football, that's is also another concept I'll never understand.
Football has had a long history and the effort that has been put into the game is really, for lack of a better world, admirable. It took around 20 years (a little more I think) to simply establish the rules and unify all the football players in England, so that all games played by the same rules. That's a lot of effort right there, 20 years of dedicated negotiation so that the game they love so much can be played the same everywhere and every time. Like I said admirable.
What's more, is that football has this strange effect on people. Somehow, when there's an important game, everyone forgets about all their troubles, their responsibilities, and heads out to watch the game. They forget about their prejudices and their hatreds and sit side by side with people they would've shunned away to watch football. The recent world cup was true proof of that and it was definitely amazing to bring all these people together all over the world at the same time, sharing the same passion. It really shows that inside, we are all the same, we are all human and we all feel the same things, share the same emotions. Like I said, it's strange effect, unlike any other and it truly is amazing.
Which brings me to the most crucial question: If the people of this world can get together for a common cause and sharing a common passion such as football, why the hell can't they get together to find world peace? To solve just a little bit of the world's problems? Why can't they forget their prejudices and negotiate with the same passion they feel for football? Why is football more important than the lives of those who are suffering? How has football established itself so powerfully in people's minds that they it completely takes over everything else? And if we can find out how football has taken the world by storm, then perhaps we can use that to infuse the world with more constructive activities? Maybe?
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