Why I Love This Beautiful Game, Part Five: How Football Explains the World

This article has been a long time coming. I didn't want to jump right on it and hammer out a piece of dribble. So I sat down and thought about how football explains the world, and it occurred to me that it not only explains the world but it can explain just about any part of life that someone may be going through.

I will only be highlighting a few points here, but I will try and paint the broadest strokes possible for the purpose of maximum inclusion.

Love

I know this must be the obvious aspect of the game that we all experience. But it's not even a general love most times. It seems that a love for this game is more akin to that you experience in high school or college.

You meet that beautiful girl who happens to be called Chelsea and constantly wears the color blue. You meet her, and everything is right in your world. She is the perfect incarnation of what you thought your first love would be.

You can't always see her, because she's not always on the tele, but eventually you raise the gas money and the entrance fee to go to her job and watch her work. You feel almost at home there with the other lads that have payed to see her and that tart whose parents named her Wigan (poor lass).

Chelsea does her job well, and you go home a happy man. However, it's not always like that. Chelsea starts to forget how to play well, and she starts to forget about the special times you two had together. You get absolutely frustrated with her, and you are about to quit her and everything she does.

But then you have a change of heart when she realizes the error of her ways and starts to play well again.

Fickle, eh? Just like high school and college love for the most of us.

There is a second type of love, though, and it's deep and passionate. It is almost like the way the Italians play football. The fan loves the game like curvaceous beauty that she can be.

With all her twists and turns and drawbacks, she is still the best love that you have had. Even better than your wife. You almost feel wrong. It's like you are cheating on your loved one. And it's not a one time cheat either. With all the competitions that FIFA hosts these days, you are cheating year-round.

A Sense of Belonging

I remember being in high school and not really belonging anywhere within the social hierarchy. I had friends in every corner of that high school, but it felt weird. I felt like a bit of an outsider. Then I discovered football and I really didn't feel left out anymore.

No other sport offers the sense of belonging that football does. The community, even here on Bleacher, is so large that you will always run into someone that you can talk to about football.

I vacationed in Cancun over the summer and was shocked to find a Chelsea fan at the bar one night. The bartender happened to be a Liverpool fan, and it made for such a wonderful evening.

The team level of belonging is so unique in football as well. If you were to take a poll of fans from your favorite team about their nationality, the list of countries represented would be astounding.

It is not only amazing on the international scale but the domestic level as well.

You go to the local pub on match day, and you meet other supporters that you have probably sang with and drank with. There comes that sense of belonging that you lacked in high school.

Even if you don't have a team, you can still gain that sense of belonging if you know a little about the game.

I have had discussions with people who didn't know the difference between Manchester United and Manchester City or why the Barcelona and Real Madrid match is so huge. They did, however, understand the basics of the game, and once again great conversation came about.

Pride in Your Country

How many world championships does FIFA hold these days? There is always a form of international competition going on, and, regardless if you follow it closely, there is someone who is.

The Olympics happen every four years and only in certain sports. The championships for football are constantly going. You can never say that you can't pull out a USA Soccer shirt because the team is "out of season."

Winning one of these events takes the notion of pride one step higher.

Even if you are an American citizen of Italian descent, a World Cup win for Italy is a World Cup win that you and possibly your parents and grandparents can appreciate.

Even though America does not have the greatest track record in international football, I still pull out my gear and watch every match that I can. A goal for Landon Donovan is a goal for America.

Simply put, football can unite a nation. Wars have been stopped because of national teams qualifying for the World Cup.

There is a power in that stronger than globalization alone.

So Why Does This Matter?

It's a short article that does not even begin to dig into how the game of football affects our average, everyday life. It was never meant to do that. However, I hope that it makes the average fan take a step back and examine how the sport affects them.

I have seen an increase in my social skills since I started playing. My interest in foreign languages has shot through the roof. My desire to visit foreign lands can not even be measured.

At the end of the day someone might ask, "What does this have to do with football?"

Everything.

Football has transcended globalization. It did so years ago before we even knew what globalization was.

Football took a step in explaining how we act as humans. Since so many of the tenets of the sport are intertwined with our lives, it's not hard to see how this beautiful game not only explains the world but the people in it, and that's why I love it so much.