Movie enthusiasts will remember Roberto Benigni for his immaculate role as a full-of-life Jewish Holocaust victim in the movie, Life is Beautiful. He gave such an astounding performance that it left the viewers stunned by the end on the movie and won him an Academy Award for the best actor and the best movie.
In his award acceptance speech for the Best Foreign Language film, he quoted Dante, not the footballer, who said: “Love is like a divinity—sometimes, when you have faith, it appears like all the divinities in the world.”
He also said that everything is always a question of love since the fact that he was there accepting the award was because people loved the movie.
And he is right: It is always a question of love.
What is love? Now, if it is something that you can explain, then it is probably not love because it can’t be expressed due to the fact that words have a limit, true love doesn’t. It is a feeling that has no logic or reason and it is a force so strong which can change the world.
There are many forms of love. The stereotypical aspect of love gives us the image of two people coming together and walking across the seashore during the sunset hour.
But love is so much more than just that.
One such pure form of love is between a football fan and the team that she or he supports. It is perhaps the most selfless form of love, and may be a little one-sided.
What does a football fan get from loving a team? What is the material benefit that she or he achieves? What are the rewards that they reap? The answer to all that is: Nothing.
In fact, it is because of this very love that football clubs survive. If so many people didn’t love Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and the other top European clubs, they would not have been on the pedestal of the football fraternity.
Why do the fans love the game so much if they don’t achieve anything from it? Because it teaches us how to dream.
Football makes a person dream, it teaches a person how to dream. It is much more of an important aspect than the joy of winning or the pain of losing. It is all about the dreams.
We dream that our favourite club will gift us moments of sheer ecstasy. We dream of hope from them, of emotional support, of a friend… we dream to be the perfect lover.
And it is only in football that we see a person’s love being centered to just one thing. These days, in such a fast-progressing world, so many couples break-up, so many hearts are shattered. It is so easy to “love” more than one person.
However, in football, the heart skips a beat when your team concedes a goal; the blood pumps through the veins with elation when your team scores a goal; the arms fly in the air when your team wins; the knees sink to the ground when your team loses.
Only in football does a person love just one team.
The reason for this is the fact that this love has selflessness, coupled with one-sidedness, at the base of it. When this is the case, a fan begins to merge with the team at some point.
To further elaborate the point I am trying to convey: After a while, a fan can associate herself or himself with the team to such an extent that she or he sees no difference between them. Fans can start liking a team for various reasons, but as time passes, the liking turns into a feeling and then they become inseparable.
The fact that your team most probably doesn’t know you exist, and yet you keep loving them, is a strong core to have an eternal love. Your team can hurt you in a million ways, but you will still love them because of this core.
In essence, when compared to general relationships between people, we always expect the other person to at least acknowledge the love. And as the saying goes, expectations are the root of all disappointments.
Yes, there are people who expect trophies from their team and there are that hope for them. The ones that fall in the former category might have the tendency to switch teams—and here is where the ‘gloryhunter’ term comes into foray—but the latter kind stays true to the principles.
But there are also people who keep supporting a team despite all their lackings. Arsenal fans, for example, are one of the most frustrated figures in the football fraternity. Despite being one of the most financially stable sides in the world, their lack of silverware is somewhat appalling.
Add to that, the season ticket price of Arsenal is the highest among the other teams in Britain. And yet, despite all the ‘Wenger-out’ fury, they turn up every week in the stadium to support their teams. And this is the kind of love you will find between a fan and her/his team only.
