Au revoir World Cup
The World Cup (W.C.) has ended. What a relief! World Cup has whipped up soccer into a super-dope. A dope gets its strength from its chemistry real & imagined. So what is the chemistry in soccer.
The foremost real one is its live spectators: a dogmatic seismic bunch, ever-ready to fall on the sword for the greater glory of soccer. Packed in neat rows like sardines, wearing war- paints, shouting war-cries, to the accompaniment of drums, and cymbals, they create a roar and a maniacal frenzy, that thanks to TV reverberate around the world. Its virulence literally steps out of the TV, into your home and possesses you with a demonic grip. So much so, soccer-lag had reduced East Asians to day-time sleep-walkers, if not zombies, over the past month.
Next comes the goalkeeper, the dart-board of soccer and the most indispensable player. His colorful attire, needless dives, melodramatic rolls, grasping air (instead of the ball) and his rare spectacular saves makes the most poignant moments of soccer swirl around him. He is the darling of everybody because soccer asks him to do a job that at least needs two pairs of eyes and legs.
Next of course comes the punters and their illicit book- making. They have first claim on the agony and ecstasy of soccer. They are its human sacrifices and soccer, like the deities of Mayas (Mexico), is a fiery deity and equally blood-thirsty, indeed, insatiable. Yet in soccer the betting is simple. You just back your favorite team. This makes soccer the derby of everybody.
Now comes the extra attraction of soccer.
The players. Not the ones who immediately come to mind; but those beached and benched in a neat row. They don't keep quiet accepting the timeless sagacious solace "They also serve who stand and wait." For wallflowers, they are hyper. Parenthetically, they keep performing: speeding in spurts and contorting the body as if intent on becoming a soccer burnout without soccering.
Then the coach. He fidgets, as he is torn between spells of uplifting euphoria, simple disgust and plain depression. The sight of him is an attraction.
What about the players? Are they not the big draw? No. Their macho status, superstar adulations and megabucks are the trappings of the show. Like a fattened calf : a propitiation to a deity. That is why when they prance around the field on scoring a goal it is a ritual dance, an obeisance to the deity, and not elation at their own handiwork. After all, stripped of hype soccer needs only an ability to see the ball, possess it and outrun with it. Pray, anything else? How else do you explain the ending of the World Cup in a dreary whimper.
The referees bring in their share of attraction too. They run alright but do they see? Well that is what makes soccer great, it allows for the possibility that the best team need not necessarily win.
None of this would work without the unrelenting push soccer gets from the various clubs and FIFA, and the media to whom World Cup is ranked only next to war. Together they create the mystic as if it is a game of the gods. This brings the heavies, the business-suited men and their acumen, into soccer. They have changed soccer from a sport into a mammoth addiction.
In spite of all that has been done to soccer--its excessive intrusion; mind-boggling rewards for doing simple aerobics; and elevation to a deity; W.C. has its own saving grace. It comes once in four years and it has no hang-ups about its acronym, W.C.
G.S. EDWIN
Jakarta