The World Cup final is a wonderfully self-contained event. It stands alone, as if the rest of the tournament did not matter, as if months of speculation and punditry did not exist. The shift from sudden death to instant immortality happens today; it is the day of the last mistake and the ultimate redemption.
When all else is forgotten, the build-up, the politics, the player vs player arguments, one thing will remain: the name of the winners.
This is the mother of all sporting occasions, bigger than the 100m at the Olympics (which, after all, lasts less than 10 seconds), the world heavyweight title bout (few countries actually watch it live), and World Cup cricket with India playing the final (more cricket fans watch football than vice versa).
Had Argentina or Brazil played Germany or Spain in the final, this might have been just a football match. Now it is larger, bringing into its ambit immigration, inclusiveness, nationhood, inter-dependence, and fundamental issues Europe is struggling with. When sport stands for something more than itself, watching it live brings with it a special frisson.
Neutral fans might be disappointed that Brazil aren’t in the final, or Germany or England. But at kick-off today, that will not matter either. ‘Non-aligned’ sports fans switch loyalties easily and without guilt. Those who cried for Argentina might throw their weight behind Croatia, for example; home fans in Russia will support France, the opponents of the team which beat them in the quarter-final. Such is the nature of sport.
Africans have not failed to make it into the knockout, tweeted a fan, “they are playing for France”. That’s true in a roundabout way. Half the French team can trace their ancestry to Africa (you might argue all of humanity might, but I am speaking of more recent history), and in Kylian Mbappe they have potentially the player of the final. His father is Cameroonian and mother Algerian.
Croatia, the second smallest country to appear in the final since Uruguay in 1950, carry the most players born outside their boundaries. Yet, for a country with a population of just over four million (France has 16 times more, although that means nothing — look at India’s population, and where are we?) which became an independent entity only in 1991, this is nationhood through sport.
And the goal, the goal! Is there a more dramatic moment separating agony from ecstasy than a goal in a World Cup final? As the Nobel laureate Maria Vargas Llosa said, “A goal is an orgasm through which a player, a team, a ground, a country, all of humanity, suddenly discharge their vital energy.” He wrote that in 1982 during the Spain World Cup.
That was the also first year the final was telecast live in India; the first year I hastily wrote a report to be carried on the front page of the newspaper to make the deadline. That makes this the 10th final for many watching on television. Football is, once again, coming home!
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu)