This just in Football isn’t dead

A lot had changed in the world of football since 2019: Real Madrid, once a European powerhouse, stooped to the lowest of lows, having failed to win any Champions League in the previous three attempts.

Chelsea Football Club lost their sugar daddy in a Russian billionaire owner through warfare.

Lionel Messi left a just-less-than-bankrupt club named FC Barcelona and went to live off-the-grid in Paris and Bangladesh, a country where more than a hundred million passionate football fans of Brazil and Argentina reside, and which somehow dramatically slipped to 188 in FIFA rankings against overwhelming odds and couldn't qualify for the World Cup this time around.

Some say, football's status as the most popular game had lost its charm ever since Manchester United stopped possessing what it takes to win even a mother's forgiveness. However, almost all mainstream academicians, based on a collective twenty-twenty hindsight, blamed the pandemic for the rapid decline of football since watch-from-home audiences weren't generating enough profit despite being overall productive in their daily lives. Something had to give to bring fans back to TV, something!

 Not everyone gave up believing in football though. Most notably, a notorious cult group named 'Football will never be Soccer, you free-kicks!' had never let their faith dampen. All they had to do was patiently wait until the prophesied Chosen One came along, the one who'd miraculously turn the tables with his Midas touch in almost every game and thus, revive the entertainment value of the game itself; at least present a fighting chance for football's sake.

 That's where Karim Benzema, like a Tamil movie hero, enters the frame and keeps being the main protagonist behind rebooting action-packed, from-out-of-nowhere-comeback wins for Real Madrid, who are one step away from lifting this year's Champions League trophy after Wednesday night.

 With all scripts flipped late in curiously dramatic fashion one by one as Paris St Germain, Chelsea and Manchester City – all overnight-turned-rich clubs – were made to suffer a severe-to-mild identity crisis, Madrid face Liverpool next, where Karim Benzema from France, frontrunner for the heavyweight championship, is up against Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, the reigning tag-team champions from Africa.

It seems the toppling of the hegemony of World Wrestling Entertainment among the teenage football fans is only around the corner; and real football is likely to come back in style following a nerve-wracking, romantic match in the finale in Paris.