It's much more than just football.
I'm from Uruguay, a really football related country with such an amazing history and so much trophies won, two world cups, fourteen southamerican cups, a couple of Olympic Games, and and some juvenile cups along this years. We are all pretty much into football like it or not, even if you don't feel it as a true passion, overtime Uruguay plays we are all together cheering for our country, that sounds pretty normal, right?. Why it isn't that normal is how the people here live a World Cup game, workers have permission to go home during the match se they can see it wherever they want, everybody stops doing what they were doing to pay attention to our team, even they don't care much about the game, is a great excuse to spend time with family and friends. The government also put some screens over the most known avenues so everybody has the chance to watch the game and experience the amazing feeling of living the game with five thousand random people in the street.
But as I said is not all about football, or cheering for your team, I always try to reach and understand the human behavior and how societies react and experience this kind of special event. As you already know Uruguay lost against France and we were knocked down in the eighth final stage, it was a good match, France played a great game, and our goalkeeper ended up making a mistake which costs us all hopes to tie the match and dream about winning that game. I saw in the news when the football team was arriving to Uruguay and a lot of people were there waiting to say hello, congratulate them and also thanks them for giving the best, people start screaming the goalkeepers name "Muslera" in order to cheer him up, letting him know that it was just a game, a bad luck moment or whatever, but we know he is a really skilled player who has already saved us before when they won the American cup in Argentina. And that was one of the best things I can say about my people, we are supporting them no matter what, we are still proud of our team, of what they did, and what they show the world about Uruguay.
Nevertheless it has a big downside, is kinda sad to see people all together cheering for our country, feeling proud about our roots, and keeping the head up high just for the World Cup. To see how nobody talks about our big problems as a society and as a country leaving aside our differences, and trying to fight for the benefit of everyone. This is also a big curtain to cover a lot of things that are happening, and most of the citizens didn't realize yet. I'd love to see everyone standing up for justice, or fighting for our rights instead of doing nothing about it, but they are all standing at 3:00 am with 42 F on an airport, and don't get me wrong, its ok to do it if you really feel like doing it, but you can still think about our biggest issues and work together with the same effort and passion.
Anyway this is an endless thought, and is just one of many things happening in the surroundings of the World Cup, like for example the press and how they manipulate, use, arrange and squeeze to the max level just to sell something related, what an awful thing to pay attention. People throwing stones to the national team bus, tv shows talking shit about
human beings, about lives, with families, normal people like you and me, with the same soul. The overexcitement the world cup brings is totally double edged sword, starting with the most important issue which is Fifa to what it brought about us as persons. I love to see all kind of sports, competitions about anything with countries playing against for the honor and proud of their people, like the Olympic Games, Tour d'France, Davis Cup, etc. But this one in particular is kinda dark and shallow, or at least it clearly take this out of a lot of people.
We didn't even realize about much news, or things happening in the world behind this time of the year. Kids trapped in the cave in Thailand are ok, great news, also France is the first finalist and the cnñ cover is that one. There are many things like that, and is imposible not to look at or realize what is happening surrounding it, as I said before, I love the World Cup, I really enjoy the games and the environment it entails, but I can't stop thinking about the non gaming thing.
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