Joga Bonito

"Sleep, Eat, Drink, Live Football! "
Cliched as this is, millions subscribe to this.

"Football is an obsession, fanaticism even! "
Yes, another school of thought, I suppose.

What is so interesting about watching 21 grown men chasing a ball the size of a man's head up and down a field that's around 100m in length, or 2 grown men wearing gloves standing between 2 posts on either end of the field,half hoping that the ball never reaches them, or to see yet another 2 men running up and down the sidelines holding, each, a ridiculously brightly coloured flag? Why even bother seeing guys in short shorts and long socks, kicking, heading, chesting, and knocking the ball around with just about any part of the body except the hands and arms? Why are there stadiums filled to the brim and cable tv subcribers paying hundreds, thousands even, to shout and yell for "their team" who are paid millions to put on skin tight jersies and do just exactly what millions of 5-year-olds do as a past-time - kicking a ball? why?

What's so appealing about this sport (lifestlye even) is that it pulls at your heartstrings, calls out for attention, distracts, commands devotion even! True, for some it reaches the point of pure obsession, fanaticism and worse still, hooliganism. It will be yet another story to touch on that area, Im more interested in penning about the paradoxical melting pot of unadulterated joy, pure bliss, sense of satisfaction and blazing passion that football, futsal, street soccer serves up.

It draws people together. Its not very often that you see a stadium of hundreds of thousands of people, joined by tens of millions in front of their tv screens, cheering in unison, celebrating with utter delirium a team of maybe 23 strangers they know only by name and appearance. For a brief 90 minutes, nobody cares about their daily problems, the differences in walks of life, status quo, skin colour, religion, gender, age, nationality. During this hour and a half, all that matters is whether their team wins or not.

The beauty of the game is reflected many a time by individual footworks, masterclass strategies, supreme tactical awareness, breathtaking teamwork and even thrilling mind games. The term "joga bonito" - beautiful football, certainly sums up the beauty of this game. The human mind automatically respects or feels a sense of envy when faced with a display beyond one's own abilities. Such it is with joga bonito. I feel that the lure of the game is in its intriguing dramas. Its in the mersmerising individual abilities of Zidane and Messi, the breathtaking strings of passes, skills, finishings and teamplay that characterises Arsenal and Barcelona, the mind games played by tactical master strategists like Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson or the pride in seeing one's own national team take gold medal on the international stage like what the young Malaysian team did.

What's more exhilarating than this is playing the sport itself. There is always a certain loyalty and comraderie in a team. There is the pride of being able to pull on the college jersey and give 90 minutes worth of effort on fields that range from beautiful artificial grass to rocky, muddy and soaking wet. In the heat of competition, all the months of vigorous training, laps after laps of strenuous running, vomiting upon exhaustion, boring video sessions on tactics seem worthwhile. Nothing beats the anticipation of an upcoming match.

Ask any of my more enthusiastic classmates and they will tell you that football, or in our case now, futsal, can be a tad bit addictive. Late night, midnight, early morning games are quite common within our circle. There is just something about kicking the ball around that keeps us wanting for more. I dare say that this "condition" will not die away anytime soon, not when the guys and girls in my class are still savouring the sweetness of the sport!

Needless to say, after all these ramblings, its clear that I am a hopeless romantic for the sport (for love too by the way, but that's beside the point). Its not just a game, a sport, a competition to me. More than that, its a lifestlye, a reflection of everyone's true colours.

ps. all that said, my priorities in life is still and will always be in this order: God, Loved ones and then only, Football. But for what its worth, football certainly does rock my socks!!! -my lifestlye!