Every four years there is a World Cup and people turn into fans. When was the last time you watched football? Four years ago! Do you remember playing then, well, here with these and the score was still like that … Yes, I remember, of course, I’m one of those non-fans. I don’t quite understand what the Champions League is, but I do know for sure that there is a World Cup every four years. The word for Russian ear is funny if not rude. And every time – every four years – I think: If I haven’t been interested in four years, do I have a right to be interested in football for a month?
There is such a moment in the memoirs of Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin. He was drafted into the Red Army in 1939 at the age of 17 and was demobilized in 1946. A man has not seen his family, friends, city, home for seven years. Belorussky returned to the train station, called home, his father picked up the phone and immediately recognized his son by his voice, but his mother did not show her face so that she would not get excited. My father said: There will be a match at Dynamo at 16:00, we will meet there. And they both understood each other – what could be more important than a match at Dynamo? Of course, you have to meet there, watch the match and only then discuss everything, only then you have to announce to your mother that her only son has returned after seven years of war. Yes, that’s the level of football passion.
But we people who don’t like football can talk about it every four years.
World Cup in Qatar. People have not yet learned to properly highlight this country’s name, and the world’s most important sporting event is already taking place there. They spent 200,000,000 (spoken – two hundred billion) dollars for this. And this is the first World Cup in the Middle East. And maybe these facts are what saved the media picture of the championship this time around. After all, there are so many exciting things happening in the world today that people are no longer interested in football. And here is the World Cup in an absolutist monarchy, in a country where the power of the emir is limited only by sharia law, where political parties, unions and demonstrations are prohibited!
The Western press started with the death of workers in the construction of sports facilities in Qatar. They prepared reports, gave figures – first they mentioned 1200 deaths in ten years, then 6700. As a result, they agreed that 37 people died directly at the construction site. Painful but acceptable.
They began to write that before the start of the championship, the sheikhs of Qatar bribed players of the Ecuadorian national team to lose to Qatar. The Ecuador – Qatar match opened the championship, the hosts needed a win for prestige. A call amounting to $7.5 million was made. Ecuador won 2:0. Either the sheikhs brought too little or the Ecuadorians were principled.
And then came the surprises: it turned out that even in the current state of world tension, the championship could be very interesting. Britain’s victory over Persia was predictable – 6:2. But the Iranians scored twice for the country that invented football!
Saudi Arabia beat Argentina! The match is of course a group match, the first match and it’s still too early to judge. Also, the Argentines scored a total of four goals but the referee canceled three. And yet. Arabs defeated great football power. Accident? Maybe. But an accident that will go down in history.
In fact, for those of us who aren’t fans, the World Cup is worth it for that – informative events and general fun out of amazement.
And I remember the championship that took place in Russia four years ago. After all, no one believed that this was possible, because they said that nothing is ready and that Russia in general is a country that has not adapted to receiving such big events. And what? In the opinion of the strictest judges of the world community, the World Cup in Russia made the brightest impression – fun, joy, freedom and the highest class of organization. We all remember those hundreds of thousands of crowds on Nikolskaya Street who surprised the happy Mexicans after the victory over Germany, the sad Croats after the final match, and the Russians after Spain’s defeat.
It is these championships – in non-football countries – that cause amazement. The people seem to say: do you also know how and how to rejoice? Also, do you have infrastructure, money, organizational opportunities, fans, players, offside equipment there? Yes, imagine. This is the side effect of globalization – what was invented in the West began to belong to the whole world. And the world has no less right to it than those who invented this entertainment. In fact, it hosts guests who pay two hundred billion dollars. And I must say, it fails pretty badly. And the fact that football is measured in money has long ceased to be news. The main thing is that money through football brings joy to millions. After all, it’s this joy of being caught up in something that provides some relief, independent of politics and the operational situation. For a month or even for a day. If there is a championship, then the world still retains the contours in which we can exist.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.