What makes the game beautiful?

Published in The Aquinian

(‘Goal’ by Incé Husain)

What draws football fans to the teams they cheer for?

Two football fans discuss their teams, the joy the sport brings them, and the interplay between football, national identity, and activism.

John Estafanos, a third year UNB student studying mechanical engineering, roots for Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and follows the Premier League. With an Egyptian background, he cheers for Egypt and African countries on the national level, and also has fond sentiments for Germany and the Netherlands.

His connection to these teams is multidimensional. He likes competition and tight matches. He is drawn to underdogs and new faces. When his friends and family choose their teams, he adopts their fervor. Some teams have captivated him for so long that he doesn’t know how he first started cheering for them. He also doesn’t like when “the same teams win in a row”.

“I just really like competition in general,” says Estafanos. “Even rival teams, I follow. Just because they’re really good and I enjoy the competition.”

Estafanos emphasizes that he does not care for athletes’ lives off the field when selecting his teams. He simply delights in the play.

“Very little do I follow players on social media or hear about what they do outside of the game. It’s really just their performance - players who are consistently good. My focus is really more on the game.”

But when play elevates from club teams to the national level, he considers interest in teams to merge with the political and to reflect fascination with the countries themselves.

“There’s definitely that switch when going from [club teams] to the [national level]. Sometimes you just kind of want to cheer for [a team] because you have a good opinion of the country and its policies.”

Estafanos shares that the language similarities between Morocco and Egypt and his interest in the German language contributed to his support for those national teams. He believes that it is inevitable that national teams are intertwined with the identity of the country they represent.

“In general, when a certain team plays, whether they’re affiliated with a government or not, they’re still taking its name, and whether it’s a conscious thing or not, they’re also affiliated with a country's reputation and its action.”

While Estafanos may consider his knowledge of global politics when choosing national teams, he says he won’t “go chasing down whether a country is “okay” to support”.

“I’m not too attached politically. I’m not by nature a political person whatsoever.”

When socio-political activism emerges on the field, Estafanos does not view it as an essential part of the game but a “side controversy”. He believes that regularly wielding football as a political platform would detract from the sport.

“At the end, really what I remember is the football that was played and who came on top in the competition. The event is really held for countries’ teams to play against each other... The players themselves getting involved in the politics - I have no opinions on that,” says Estafanos. “I think it would be pretty big if everyone decided to [use football as a platform]. Pretty big in a way that it may even be a little off-putting to the sport. Because then, it maybe gives the sport a little less meaning as it’s kind of being weaponized in some way for political reasons. Just keep the game beautiful and stick to that.”

***

Amir Ayati is a chemistry PhD student at UNB. Having grown up in Iran, his first football focus was on two famous domestic clubs in Tehran, the red-jerseyed Persepolis FC and blue-jerseyed Esteghal FC. The teams surged with a rivalry that fueled Ayati’s early friendships.

“I grew up as a red fan. A huge part of my childhood was just following the sport. A lot of my best friends were fans of the blue team, but that was part of the fun. We just grew up debating, trash- talking, watching the games. Even going to stadiums,” says Ayati. “The memories that you make from that, the highs and lows... Maybe if you weren’t a football fan that day would have just been a normal day. But because you’re a football fan that day could be one of the best days of your life if you win, and one of the worst days if you lose.”

As he got older, Ayati began following international leagues, the Premier League, the Champion’s League, and top European leagues. He is a steadfast Arsenal fan, sharing that he became a fan during a season where they went unbeaten, and then remained a fan as they underwent a long series of losses. Their commitment to seeking new, young players and good football kept him loyal.

“It’s the feeling that you have for the team - that even if they’re not still good, you still want to cheer for them.”

In the World Cups, the Iran national team was important to Ayati. He would track their qualification matches hopefully. He recalls the days when Iran had secured World Cup matches and how the city would take to the streets.

“Everybody was celebrating, cheering, honking with cars. It was so big. There would be thousands of people in the streets.”

Now, Ayati views the Iran national team differently.

He explains that the revolts in Iran began only two months before the recent World Cup, and believes that the government of Iran tried to use the World Cup to distract from the unrest. The Iran national team players met with government officials, and photos of the players posing with president Ebrahim Raisi emerged. Later, the team was shown laughing in a pre-tournament photoshoot. Many Iranis took to social media to retract their support for the team, considering these events to nullify the team’s prior acts of protest.

“That was why I didn’t want those players and that team to win. I watched their games and I really didn’t want them to win,” says Ayati.

Ayati acknowledges that the team may have been pressured, but does not believe that personal contexts matter when a country is facing revolution. The only thing that matters is the impact that actions have, which either align with the vision of revolutionaries or support an oppressive government. He believes that the team’s next act of solidarity, where they refrained from singing their national anthem at a World Cup match, was not enough to compensate.

“Their actions ended up helping [the government]. When a revolution is happening, either you’re with it or against it. There is no middle ground. It’s about basic human rights,” says Ayati. “A lot of people in Iran are risking their lives and more than their careers. So we are expecting the same thing from our [football] heroes.”

Ayati believes that rooting for a national team in the World Cup equates to support for the country. He shares how Morocco’s match against France ignited discourse about the charged histories between the countries, and believes football offers a political platform that is embedded in the act of cheering.

“If any person has a platform, they have the chance to use it. [It could be] by rooting for the players of a national team,” says Ayati. “If two countries are at war and they play a football game, that is not going to be non-political. [The match] helps you fight. This battle [on the football field] might be more fair than an actual war that is happening.”

Ayati does not believe that regular instances of activism in football would harm the beauty of the game. He believes that, as humans, we are inseparable from what we care about, and so it is more intuitive to view play and activism as one unit.

“If you’re a human, you care. And you care all the time [not just off the field],” says Ayati. “[Football] is a platform. I don’t understand why a celebration after a game that supports a social cause will cause a problem with ‘the beautiful game’. The game happened, and the goal was scored, and that was beautiful.” ♦

A modified version of this article appeared in The Aquinian on January 27th, 2023:

https://theaquinian.net/politics-and-sports-do-they-belong-together/