Immutable and unignorable: Our passion for football and festivity

Having been a bit lukewarm to the FIFA World Cup thus far for not having my favourite team at this edition in Qatar, I was kind of sucked into the excitement of it all a fair two days after the Greatest Show on Earth began. It was the Argentina versus Saudi Arabia match on Tuesday which once again reminded me of football's power to get people imbued despite the daily grind.

 I walked out of my home for office, a little later than usual after having completed my online chores, just as Saudi Arabia cancelled Lionel Messi's 10th minute spot-kick. From whatever I had observed of the first-half action, I thought the equaliser must have been an odd moment of brilliance from an unfancied Saudi team. But as I ventured through the unusually quiet alleys of Dhaka, I began to question my conclusion.  

There were very few vehicles on the streets, and whatever people there were that day were buzzing in front of shops which had a television hung up somewhere on the wall.

There was still a bit of time left for Argentina to equalise or even regain the lead, I felt, given the magical abilities of Lionel Messi. But my assumption was soon dispelled, when stuck in traffic, I saw a middle-aged street vendor hurl expletives at his mate about the losing team, visibly out of frustration.

 From the collective gasps of the people, I gathered that things were not going as everyone had expected. I tried my best to decipher the scoreline from the distance, but to no avail. I had used up my mobile data, so I got it recharged and was as dumbfounded as everyone else. The Saudis had taken the lead! Saudis, often considered as the punching bags of the World Cup, were winning against a side who were threatening to register a record for the longest unbeaten streak! Crazy!

Photo: Firoz Ahmed/Mintu Deshwara

 There was still a bit of time left for Argentina to equalise or even regain the lead, I felt, given the magical abilities of Lionel Messi. But my assumption was soon dispelled, when stuck in traffic, I saw a middle-aged street vendor hurl expletives at his mate about the losing team, visibly out of frustration. He might have already had a rough day like most street vendors do, haggling with customers from dawn to dusk, but his day got worse – his expression said as much – as his team of stars got beaten in their very first test. There was absolute disbelief on the faces of people, as if the party they had been anticipating for four years had just been spoiled.

 Once I reached office, I was met with a bunch of colleagues clad in the sky blue and white, faking smiles through pain and some others clad in bright yellow poking fun at them. All in good spirits though.

 Zia was one of those wearing his favourite Albiceleste jersey which he brings out of his wardrobe every four years in hope that the modern-day messiah of Argentina would help him revisit his first memories of World Cup – a very young Zia, unbeknownst of the intricacies of the game, cheering with his father as Diego Maradona bedazzled the world with his trickery in Mexico '86.

 Zia recalls how his policeman father once jokingly told the local electricity officials how he won't stop people from vandalising the electricity office if there were any blackouts during the matches.

 Those were days of heavy load-shedding and monochrome televisions slowly giving way to colour ones. Times have changed, technology has advanced through leaps and bounds and people have found new mediums to express their emotions, but the passion and craze that football invokes in fans every four years seem to have remained the same.

 Zia recalls how his policeman father once jokingly told the local electricity officials how he won't stop people from vandalising the electricity office if there were any blackouts during the matches.

 Shabab is another of my colleagues, a much younger one and one who admittedly grew up on a heavy dose of European club football, more specifically of the English Premier League. He has been grinning from ear to ear since England beat Iran 6-2. Unlike Zia, Shabab has never seen his favourite team lift any global or continental title, yet he dreams, like most optimistic England fans, that his long wait will end one day and erase the painful memory of Frank Lampard's infamous disallowed goal against Germany in 2010. Gareth Southgate's men reached the last four in Russia four years ago and went one better in the Euros last year. No harm in dreaming for the ultimate glory in Qatar, Shabab quips. 

I have often wondered what makes us Bangladeshis act so passionately over a sport which many of us so carefully keep away from our conscience for the best part of four years. I have asked myself why someone would paint their house in the tricolours of the European nations who had colonised much of the world for centuries, or why people would put hundreds of yards of clothes together to show support for countries that are geographically and culturally poles apart.  

While I have failed to find any definitive answer to these questions, my best guess is that, as passionate people, we enjoy expressing our emotions with others and feeling part of this global celebration. We may be light-years away from appearing in a World Cup but the event has got so ingrained in our collective conscience, that we own it like anyone else in the world. And then of course the respite this one month of football festivity brings from the harsh reality, especially in these difficult times, makes it so precious and rewarding.