Between the despair of defeats to the elation when you see a mazy dribble, football is captivating, and takes us to great emotional heights. It’s The Beautiful Game indeed.
On a bright day in early May 2018, I found myself repeating “football, bloody hell” on loop, in a stadium in the south-west of Germany. Surrounded by blurs of noise, and blue and white, I was gripped by a pure joy surprising not just in intensity, but also in its very existence. I closed my eyes for a second, so I could take a sunlit part of it away with me, stowed away for the days when I’ll desperately need it.
On that day, TSG Hoffenheim qualified for the Champions League for the first time ever, and I was there, one of 30,000 others. Yet, that day will go down as one of my best fan experiences irrespective of bearing witness to a historical moment. I’ll cherish it because of the electric atmosphere reverberating through the smallest stadium I’ve been in, because of the friend I went to the game with and the people I met, because I remembered what it was like to watch football for the sake of the game. After the toughest season in my 16 years of being an Arsenal fan, that victory versus Dortmund at the Rhine-Neckar Arena was something I never knew I needed. It answered the why. Why I’ve let a sport so overwhelm me, my heart, my life – and why I do so happily and gratefully.
But, only a day later, as I was on the train, shrouded by the the rain, the grey, and the hastened dark, I felt a weight settle in my stomach. It refused to budge. Yes, I was missing Arsene Wenger’s last game in charge, but I’d already said my goodbyes when I wrote his tribute, then at the Lir with the Boston Gooners for his last home game on a glorious London afternoon. But I was suddenly, inexplicably emotionally spent and even the thought of the upcoming World Cup couldn’t lift the veil.