MY WORLD CUP QUEST: WATCHING SPORT IS A WASTE OF TIME

6/32 WORLD CUP TEAMS COMPLETED

LANDED DOWN UNDER

Day three of the World Cup promised a lot. There was four games in one day taking place on a Saturday night in Bangkok. The first game was Australia versus France. Unlike previous games, today I was meeting long term friends in a Western bar. That meant a crowd that was hard to walk through and hard to speak over. It meant a sizable minority of females were now present. It meant sarcastic jokes and generous friends. It meant taking the piss and telling stories. It meant booze and lots of it.

Pilot(Australia) and Teacher(France) were sitting across from one another when I arrived as all good adversaries should. The space on the table between them would have been just about the right size to conduct a game of chess or an arm wrestle. Too far to grab but close enough to swipe. But there were no chess pieces on this dividing table. Rather their stood two tall glasses of beer. These two men are frustratingly friendly and cordial with everyone and we couldn't cajole them into any sort of skirmish with one another. The real battle was on the big screen to our right.

FAMILY FEUDS

The bar was heaving with people. The bright yellow of the Australian jersey could be seen in every direction I looked
in the bar. Flecks of blue could also be seen by those French people brave or silly enough to watch the game in a bar called The Australian. Our group sat tightly around a horseshoe booth. There was at least a dozen of us in our group including Accountant, Cakemaker and Mr. and Mrs Rugby. People from 4 different continents and twice as many countries sat together at 5pm on a Saturday night. Most of us play football together twice a week. Many of us have played these games together for years. We don't always socialise together or work together or eat together but for many of us who are long term expats, far from home, our football group is a sort of surrogate family. Aside from our partners we spend more time with each other, doing something we like, than with anyone else in the city. A day like today feels strangely familial. An excuse to take it all a little less seriously and relax into a few hours of excessive talk, food and drink. This is nothing new. Therein lies the value.

The game itself had plenty of drama. The video assisted referee (VAR) technology had its most infamous case in the awarding of a penalty to France. The fact that people still disagree about the result despite all the camera angles available to us in 2018 shows us the limitation of the technology. It also means we can be assured that the drama inherent in football and the difference in opinion it creates is hard to eradicate. Sport allows us a very useful framework for emotional expression that would otherwise not find an outlet in our increasingly individualistic society.

FOOTBALL ISN'T LIFE OR DEATH

What is the point of football? Why do we waste days of our lives watching something rather than taking part? Why do we glorify and villanise people we don't know? How do we get so worked up about a contrived game played by millionaires? I'm not sure I can answer all those questions thoroughly. I'd like to suggest that the search for meaning is a good place to start. Modern society has made us more comfortable than ever, yet it has tore away communal meaning. This society helps us to live longer yet encourages us to live independently. Highly complex societies allow us to achieve fantastic achievements as a species but leaves us with highly specialised, repetitive and unfulfilling tasks. Watching football is a language all on to itself. We are free to get sad and get happy and show it. We are free to vent and praise. We are free to express emotion. Everyone is asked for their opinion. There isn't always unanimity in decisions but the game always directs the focus of the group. We can experience the same emotion as other people while with them, at the same time, in the same place. Our focus is narrow and simple. We have a common cause or a common goal. We live in the moment. We look the same direction. (The Thai phrase for "I agree" is "hen duay"/เห็นด้วย. It literally means "I see too"). Even the most popular YouTube channels and Netflix shows cannot offer you that. There is no collective movement. Our modern world is increasingly atomised. Watching football is an answer for our instinctive communal wants that also allows you to hold a beer or a sisha pipe in your hand at the same time. What's not to love? Watching live sport delivers an immediacy and an emotive punch no longer easy to find in our safer, cleaner and ever more fractious modern societies.

ALLEZ LES BLEUS AND THE SAME OLD BLUES

France were eventually victorious with a 2-1 scoreline and the bookies were right once more. But not before Australia got its rip-roaring collective howl off its chest when they drew level at 1-1. Football managers will say that only the result of a game matters. Football fans know different.

*Join me in my quest. It started here https://steemit.com/sport/@highselfesteem/i-m-going-to-watch-the-world-cup-with-a-fan-from-every-country-in-bangkok-or-sleep-trying and will continue for the duration of the World Cup.

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