Football and justice

As many other things in life, football obeys a series of dualities: apart from the obvious winning-losing aspect, the most notable duality is that every team, no matter its size or origin, has a rival counterpart, a sworn enemy in the field. As a result, you don't only enjoy when your team wins, but also learn to feel relieved when your main adversary loses. Apart from this indisputable duality, there is the very important fact that the football follows no logic. As such, it defies any predictions or anticipated analysis. Much of the beauty in football can be traced back to that simple principle.

The lack of reasonable explanation in events related to football is closely related to justice. Justice is absent from most aspects of life, let alone football. In spite of this, justice at large is a common ideal that is perceived as a feasible one by most of us. In fact, one often hears frustrated football followers complaining about results not being fair. I could bet many lines have been written with the experiences of great teams that never won, or with the lives of extraordinary players who never saw glory. If "justice" or "logic" were part of football then rich teams would win every cup, and talented players would make no mistakes, injuries wouldn't be such a big deal, and everything would be terribly boring. The lack of logic (and therefore of justice) not only makes the whole sport interesting, it's what inspires "weak" teams to overcome their deficiencies and dream of victory. In some sense, perhaps contradictorily, the lack of logic is what equates the two teams in the field.

All of the above is partially due to Barcelona failing to get to the finals of the UEFA Champions League. As a Real Madrid follower, this makes me happy. A very good friend of mine is a Barcelona follower, and he always appeals to the "justice" argument in discussion. We discuss about football quite often; he's quite an expert and, unlike me, remembers many things. It is easy to imagine him now, saying things like "Don't you think it's unfair Barcelona losing against ultradefensive Inter?" I always reply with the same answer, essentially what I just wrote about football and justice. Most of the times he accepts my argument reluctantly. My friend and I have an agreement of not making fun of the other about the failures of our teams. This agreement has lasted for years now, so I am gonna enjoy silently this moment. He's been extremely noble to make his part, even if he has had plenty of opportunities of making fun of the recent and repeated failures of Real Madrid. This post is dedicated to him; I am confident the post does not break our agreement.