This Thursday, the Brazilian soccer team will take the field against Croatia in Sao Paulo in the opening game of the World Cup, the quadrennial world championships of soccer.
"Soccer is a game in which 22 idiots run after a ball," said the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz. I would add, "Idiots or not, when the World Cup is on, nearly the entire world watches them."
More than that, every national team wants to be there, because soccer is no longer just a game, but much more than that. And in fact, as a result of the unprecedented technological innovations of the last generation, watching the games is a very different experience from what it used to be.
The World Cup will last a month and a day. The final match will take place on July 13. The world will hold its breath. Even those who have no interest in the championship will not be able to ignore it: It will jump at them from every screen, it will be reported by every possible media channel and crowds of fans will not be able to stop talking about and analyzing every move by every team. What a shame that -- once again -- our own Israel did not manage to make it to the championships, but Israelis' love for soccer will not let them remain indifferent.
If in the early World Cups, which were only held in Europe or South America, some national teams would boycott the competition and it garnered relatively little attention, nations from rival political alliances now show up. The World Cup is back in South America after stops in Asia and Africa, and there is more interest in it, a lot more. The time has passed since the World Cup served as another stage for hatred and battles, like the case of England and Argentina and the Falkland Islands conflict, and now it is another way for people to come closer together, not distance themselves from each other. In the past, African and Asian teams were kept out of the championships by European control of the institution, but today they are an inseparable part of the competition, even at its final stages.
Moreover, it is well known that in the past there were cases in which scores were fudged and games fixed. Cheating was something that was accepted. It created antagonism and a sense of unfairness. Today's technological setup, with its contraptions and camera angles, allows us to scrutinize every move on the field and even off it, reducing resentment and making this competition much fairer, while we are no less satisfied.
There is a endless number of reasons why we will sit mesmerized in front of the screen, and here are a few: Will Lionel Messi finally earn Argentina a cup, going down as the best player in history? Or will Brazil, the host country, win the championship after failing to do so last time it hosted, in 1950, which left its citizens traumatized? Will Germany's beautiful style of play these past few years win it the cup? And how far will the African and Asian nations get? Will Belgium or Uruguay revisit their glory days and surprise everyone, and will the Netherlands make it through?
We will wait and see, and even enjoy.
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