Lottery in Bernabéu – There’s Always Another Remontada

Souradeep Chattaraj

15th April 2025 | 1:23 PM

Like all men in the Bernabéu, I’ve been a dreamer; like all , a slave to the cruel destiny scribed by the footballing gods. I have a dark circle beneath my left eye, the right one possesses a darker and a deeper one. On the night of the 9th, when Aurangzeb’s fateful cannon was bombarding another sacred canon of club football, I watched without blinking. Did I enjoy the performance of a tactically-disjointed team which at times seemed like it doesn’t know how to play football? No. But on the night of the 17th , I’ll be watching them again. I owe this unfathomable and borderline crazy courage to an institution which other fanatics don’t know or which acts in them in a secret and often unknown manner: The Lottery.

Bernabeu

When the first round object was kicked by a human being, it did not know that this round object would once dictate the rhythmic oscillation of delight and anguish of its descendants. I don’t know of its history, but I’m aware of its powerful purpose. I come from a dizzy land where a lottery is the only basis of reality and football is only an instrument to that. As the beautiful game marched on, mysterious and often veiled men on the touchline conjectured about how the ideal game must be played. I’ve never pondered about these blasphemous ideas but now that I’m embracing myself for another nerve-wracking and hopefully enthralling night, I must think.

Ideologues and philosophers often create order out of chaos. Their ideology lies in controlling the supreme God of chaos which is kicked by 22 big, burly men. This approach gives the game a firm basis upon which one can create a ‘formula’ – the utmost generalization and codification of the nature of this game. Little do they know that there are thousands of others present in the stadium whose heart is beating because they’ve always been enchanted by the divine game of chance. Football is an analyst’s nightmare because it’s not a discrete sport like cricket or baseball. Rather, it is a continuous flow of possibilities which grows exponentially with every kick of the ball. Every attempt to curb the randomness will give rise to further disorder. Probably, the human heart is beating to marvel at the great disorder that is life and football is no different.

To the reader who is still mystified – and dare I say, disgusted – by this absurd babble must know that I’m talking about the imminent second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals between Arsenal and Real Madrid. Due to a stupendous and dominant performance by the Gunners, we lag behind by three goals; and we’ll have to come up with our own memorable performance if we want to salvage the season. Remontada is not a game of chance. Any amount of browsing the deeper depths of football journalism will tell you that comeback is as much a science as electricity or magnetism is. It depends on the mindset of a team, self-confidence, proper management of the competitive anxiety and the combined ability to enter a ‘flow state’. There is even research that shows that experience equips a player with better stress management and pressure handling capabilities in a high octane game (God I miss Karim). But, then again, Arsenal had not scored from a direct free-kick for 4 years. What were the chances? One should’ve asked Declan. What are the chances that one Real Madrid will complete yet another comeback to play in the semis?

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