A Memo from the East is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada State Legislature from 1996 to 2016.
Watching last Sunday’s World Cup final with excited fans gracing Argentina and France at my son-in-law’s Atlanta brewery, I couldn’t help but hope the partisan political finale ended with such good intentions. Both countries’ teams, their stars and even their fans left it all on the field in great style.
Call me naive, I guess anyone who writes a Sunday column titled “Memo from the Mean” is already known for being. But after the kind of spectacle that ABC Wild World of Sports’ Jim McKay described as “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” it was heartening to see players from both teams tearfully embrace even their fiercest opponents.
The World Cup is a mirror of the emerging world. Michael Bradley, a former member of the US World Cup team, says of the tournament: “The joy of people watching their country’s national team at the World Cup and the excitement and emotion it arouses is something no other global event in sports, entertainment or politics has.”
In fact, football has outgrown the economic situation of the countries that play it. For many, football has become the language and the great equalizer of the world – as evidenced by the semi-final match between France and Morocco, the African country occupied by former colonialists over the past century. Morocco’s joy in competing with the occupier was palatable.
“The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world because (football) is the most popular sport in the world… because it is the simplest sport,” Paddy Agnew explainedfootball correspondent for the Irish Times.
You can play the game anywhere. You can use the vests to post targets in London’s Hyde Park, or you can see children playing in the streets of a shantytown like in South Africa with a ball made of scraps of cloth.
The result is the largest sporting event in world history. During the World Cup in 2014, more than 1 billion fans came to watch the final, and the tournament itself had a global audience of 3.2 billion people. The only thing that separates the World Cup from other sporting events (such as the World Baseball Championship) is the sheer pride and importance that football holds in countries. Bragging rights for the next four years is a big deal for countries.
It was certainly a big deal for Qatar, the first Arab country to host the World Cup, which is estimated to have spent $220 billion transforming itself into hosting the event. Qatar government spokesman Ali Al Listent emphasized the importance: “The world has never been more divided, so events like this are a timely reminder that we have much more in common than we think.”
Nowhere was this common thread of humanity more evident than when the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran were knocked out in the group stage. Enemies on the world stage, the personal diplomacy between the two groups of players was particularly poignant after several Iranian players refused to sing their national anthems, in solidarity with the massive protests back home against the Islamic regime. The act of challenging them provided may lead to some of these players being confronted punishment, imprisonment or even death upon their return to Iran. After defeating Iran 1-0, the American players could be seen embracing and consoling their opponents — not just out of sportsmanship, but out of concern for their opponent’s well-being back home.
Sport, it is said, builds character. It also reveals it – as in the case of the many intimate gestures exchanged by players from enemy nations, past and present. It was also a sign of internationalism that Russia was banned from any World Cup qualifiers due to its brutal invasion of Ukraine.
There is something to learn from the World Cup. Perhaps in the future we can settle our differences on a mathematical field, as David and Juliot did on the battlefield. Future presidential candidates can step out onto the field (as their rhetoric suggests) and save us the ordeal of long, brutal campaign seasons.
Of course, that will never happen. But leaving “everything in the field” – as Argentina and France did – may be one of the best gifts left under humanity’s tree this Christmas Sunday.
A Memo from the East is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada State Legislature from 1996 to 2016.
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