The simplest sport

Football is everyone's sport, and particularly the poor people's sport. As soon as a small child begins to walk, he takes hold of that supple spherical body -- as if to test its magnitude and density with his hands. He throws it before him, kicks and follows, running.

This is the initial connection between the human being and the football; and thus, I am convinced, it began with the earliest Homo Sapiens running after those smaller creatures that share the shape of the ball. Notwithstanding the evolution required for it to attain its present state, it would not be entirely untrue to suggest that football began at the dawn of human civilisation, costing its eager practitioners nothing. For it requires neither a preconstructed space, nor the complex paraphernalia associated with sports like golf or squash -- to mention but two examples of sports that, compared to football, turn out to be demanding in the way of the material necessities required for playing them.

Football also results in astonishing skill, since its players are required to use one of the least versatile parts of their body as their principal instrument, namely their feet, whose natural job is to carry the weight of the body, doing little more than moving it through walking or running; the infinitely more adept hands are kept constantly at bay. The individual skill required for a screw, a banana shot, a smooth manoeuvre becomes an art unto itself -- almost miraculous at times. Football is arguably the sole human endeavour in which the ability of the feet surpasses that of the hands. This makes the real cost involved in playing or coaching football not any expensive equipment but rather fitness, health and virtuosity. It can be played anywhere, at any time -- whether in a well-equipped stadium or in the alleyway, in the morning or with the help of lampposts. All that is required is some space, and a driven set of players who can be split into two teams.

A team sport, football is equally an individual sport in which the individual, highly skilled player (accompanied by the ball) is at one and the same time the contender and his rival. To repeat, it is everyone's sport, starting from the poorest of the poor and going all the way up to the richest of the richest -- whether participants or onlookers. No doubt it continues to charm so many, finding its way to video games and other forms of entertainment. It is the world's premiere sport, the world's most popular pastime and stuff out of which myths are made. And we are not about to witness the end of the magic wielded by that simple, supple spherical body -- to which everyone has access.