#130

FOOTBALL MOST BEAUTIFUL FORM OF GLOBAL PLAY

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

G

lobal sporting events bring together the human spirit in collective and individual form.

While humanity often appears to struggle to control the individual identity within a cohesive community, in sports the winner more obviously succeeds by shaping the team and the exceptionally talented player together.

One team may form around the player or players, while another team might expect the individual to play within them, and fit in with them, and work from within the unit of other players as only a team can be successful, often even in individual sports.

The demand for focus becomes so great that all other thoughts dissolve, at least temporarily in the moment, athleticism putting aside out of necessity other worldly distractions formed from politics, race and economics.

In world cup football, the team might consist of the athlete, a coach, a trainer a physiotherapist, a social planner, and a supportive network of family and friends, and then repeat that combination for the other 10 players on the field, and the five substitutes eagerly waiting on the sidelines to take part in play on behalf of a hopeful nation.

Play can be anything, from chatting on social media to participation in a fitness challenge, to unravelling a moral dilemma posed between two intellectuals. Every four years though, the dominant play in global affairs is world cup football, with fans travelling great distances to spectate – and experiencing as much pleasure from spectating as the pleasure experienced in being one of the players picked to the final team roster.

This world cup, 16 cities throughout North America will host the tournament draw. Perhaps not the most rational scheduling, but with the modern transportation infrastructure in place, quite doable in a kind of chaotic, compartmentalized way.

The challenge may be commensurate with charting out the Great Frontier and settling the West, at first, along the railways and rivers flowing from the east, and along the most convenient paths through the prairies from one ocean to another.

Make no mistake, Canada in the north, and the 13 American Colonies settling along the East from the 49^th to the Gulf of Mexico, competed for jurisdiction with the Spanish and Mexico to the south, while other great world powers, after much wasted effort, cut their losses in this hostile land, choosing to secure a better presence in Europe, such as England, France, Russia and even the Dutch.

World Cup cities quite often were once Indigenous villages, such as Seattle and Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest – Mexico City, Florida……………Toronto, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York New Jersey, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Everyone lives together now, certain people not so harmoniously as others, with communities not so much melting pots living in harmony but cauldrons of people in the neighbourhoods struggling to make life worthwhile.

These cities may be dysfunctional at times, with a disorganization arising from the inability of the government to keep pace with the population growth. Certain obstacles are distinctly North American, such as spaghetti like loops of concrete meticulously constructed in adoration of the automobile.

Homelessness has increased as an obvious sign of economic dysfunction, which has not been addressed in any systematic way. In many cities, everyone is always in crisis control with the income disparity, between the few and the many, going unchecked.

Football is one of those sports that can resonate with everyone, though, like magical happy play.

Football can be played with equal skill in the melting pots as in the cauldrons. And players have shown time and time again the rise of talent from the urban ghettos and shack-lined favelas of resource rich nation states.

What is football, if the game is not the most democratic form of play, with a single ball and the fewest rules possible.

The intuitive strategizing of football may be the most beautiful form of play.