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It is not called the "beautiful game" without a reason.
Football is the most popular sport in the world and for good reason. We all have our own individual reasons, on why we love football and how we started to love it. For some, the reasons are super simple. For others, they can be complicated. Whatever they are in this article I talk about 6 reasons why we as humans love football.
#1 An escape
Football often acts an escape from our normal life. We may have had a hard week and so the entire week we may look forward to that one weekend game. For those 90 minutes, we forget all our problems and focus on our team's problems. A goal scored by our team brings us joy and a goal conceded makes life harder.
Whatever the result, for those 90 minutes, we can completely immerse ourselves in football and forget about everything else.
#2 Simulation of life
Life is full of emotions and football in some ways brings out almost all of those emotions in ninety minutes. If our favourite player scores, we are happy. If our favourite player misses a penalty we are sad.
If the referee makes a bad decision we are angry. If our team loses we are disappointed. If our team is under attack we are nervous and if our team is attacking we are excited. I could go on but simply put, football is ninety minutes of pure emotions, much like life.
#3 Larger than life
As humans, we have the innate tendency to be part of something that is larger than our own individual selves. We often, want to be part of something that others follow and believe in. Football is one answer to that. We all have our dreams and aspirations and many of those dreams and aspirations collide with others when it comes to football. This leads to fan clubs and friendships and an enhanced love for the game.
#4 Part of our culture
Imagine that you meet someone, who you have never met before. Often after the formal introductions, you look for a topic you both share in common or a topic you both can relate too. It may be politics, films, or sports. In sports football, is the most popular sport. It is part of our culture in such a huge way that it almost always is a part of our conversation, in a way that it is a different language.
Hence if I ask someone who he or she prefers between Messi and Ronaldo, he or she will give me her opinion. I would agree or disagree with her opinion, which will lead to further conversation.
#5 Easy to understand
Think about cricket? There are stumpings, run outs, powerplays, no balls, wides, follow-ons and so on. Furthermore, there are Test matches, ODIs and T20s. Football is really simple. Put the ball in the net without letting the ball touch your hand unless you're a goalkeeper. Of course, there are offsides and red cards and yellow cards and so on but football is still very simple compared to other sports.
#6 The beauty of the game itself
The game itself is far too beautiful to be ignored. It asks for our admiration and gets it in abundance. There is no right way to play the game. There is no perfect formation and there is no perfect player. There is no recipe to win a football game. While other sports claim to be unpredictable, football truly lives up to that tag.
