My recent trip to Singapore coincided with one of the world’s greatest sporting and viewing events in history : the FIFA World Cup 2022. I am honestly, a relatively newer fan of the game, if I may, but however much of it I have followed since the last FIFA cup, I have thoroughly enjoyed.
So this time around, I was determined to follow the games closely, and deepen my interest and knowledge of the game, which I successfully did to an extent and I am happy about that. But this random musing is about how much this game and sports in particular impacts people, their emotions, and evokes spirits of brotherhood [and sisterhood :P] amongst ardent followers.
On the second day of my Singapore trip, while walking back from our visit to Burger King [P.S. one of the very few places in Singapore which serves vegetarian burgers], me and my dad heard loud cheers next to a lane, very close to our hotel. Curious, we straddled that path, the cheers getting louder by the second and guiding us to our direction the very same time. In the next few seconds, our eyes lay on a community center: imagine an open space, with heaps of plastic chairs spread in a similar fashion, folks - young and old, male and female - alike, cheering for Japan’s goal against Germany and then settling back on their seats, after the second replay of that ver goal. I knew where I was going to spend the next hour of my life:)
Me and my dad quickly grabbed a chair, and lay our eyes on the projector screen beautifully set against the plain, old wall of the center. For the duration of the match, folks kept joining us, and each time someone new came in, glances were exchanged, as if with our eyes, we were updating one another of the progress of the match up until that point.
Sitting very next to me, an old Singaporean uncle started murmuring something about the game, and I imagined he was talking to me, making some prediction of sorts. The murmurs grew louder as the game time drew closer and though I am pretty sure the language he was speaking was not English, we were definitely conversing with each other from that moment. He mentioned something about Japan closing another goal, and what now appears to be magic, Japan did succeed at that in the very next minute, drawing the crowd crazy for the remaining duration of the game.
It was that very moment, that I felt, the lack of any judgement and a sense of pure love for the game : there were no stares at seeing a short heighten, Indian, female watching a football game next to 50 odd folks, all of whom she barely knew or would ever know. There were only smiles, celebratory exchanges, hopeful glances, but no judgement:)
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