Football is the king of sports. It’s no accident. And there are several explanations for why this happens.
First of all, people are used to living for stories, with stories. At least half of us live our lives within the imagination, within a coherent set of myths and symbols that give our existence a meaning, a purpose. Of all sports, football is the closest to a story. How and why?
A story, in order to exist, needs an act of will – a hero that wants to achieve something, who has a path to follow. Then, there are all the obstacles encountered along the way which our hero overcomes with the help of his teammates and, most importantly, with the help of the stands. With our (the supporters) help. We are part of the story.
Secondly, football is a democratic sport. After all, you only need people to play it. The ball can be, and often has been, improvised. Football can be played with a rag ball, as it often happens in the neighborhoods of Naples, on the outskirts of Heaven. That makes football immediately understood and prized anywhere. In contrast the complicated rules architecture of for example rugby, keeps it hermetically sealed, inaccessible to the broad masses.
Thirdly, football is just like life, as observed by Pablo Aimar, Leo Messi’s idol. In football, just like in life, the best does not always win; in football, just as in life, even the outsider has a chance – he can conquer through dedication, talent, and some luck. In football, just like/as in life, sometimes you win or lose due to a tiny detail or fate.
Football is also reason and magical thinking. That is why people never give up on football, no matter how seductive, for example, the sports played in the United States may be. Football is above all European and being European football carries with it the inherited genius of our old continent. A match lasts 90 minutes and has low scores – time often seems to pass without anything significant happening (as sometimes in life). Then, suddenly (as in Chekhov’s novels) something happens that can be, that must be, that will be told.
We bet on football more than on tennis or basketball or ice hockey because we know, without anyone having to tell us, that football is the closest thing to life. In fact, to some of us football will be in our thoughts even on our deathbed: some matches, a few footballers and a few goals that made us so happy in moments that will then seem so beautiful but so far away…
This is the emotional, the sentimental explanation. But there is another. In football and politics, there’s a saying: everyone thinks they know something. Because it is the most watched and the most talked about, football not only arouses passions, but also arouses the desire to check your knowledge of the phenomenon. We bet on football because we feel we have mastered the field. Even when we lose, we still feel like we know what we’re doing and that we were close, very close – maybe we were just unlucky. In football there is plenty of room for chance and absurdity.
We bet on football because football makes us experience emotions that we have known since childhood, because we belong to natural football and it is part of our culture and civilisation, because those who don’t play do not win, because those who do not bet may not lose anything but neither do they win. Because football is a whole universe, and each individual supporter feels that they understand its mysteries.
We bet on football rather because we have favorite teams, moods, hopes, revenge to take, because it is the simplest investment. It’s easier to have a good betting system and win with it than it is to buy shares on the stock exchange or to go through investment funds. Because we know that in football there is always the possibility to win even when nobody gives you a chance. And no game is over until the referee blows his whistle – and sometimes not even then. We bet on football because it makes us dream big.
