“एक महाकुम्भ – अब अफ्रीका में”

Sunny Rajan

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In my previous blog A RACE AT THE TOP I titled this year soccer world cup as MAHAKHUMBH and I stand to support it or even call it MAHA-MAHA-KHUMBH.

The first thing that allures me off Mahakhumbh is the intensity, persona and spiritually associated to it that binds a whole nation and in effect creates an atmosphere of Integrity, and same is the enigma of Football world cup. Football is not only a game it is about passion, a religion where peoples from every sphere of life are bind with a string. It is a game which is played by each and every nation, and I call it as a

“Hearty affair, and love to this beautiful game”
The World Cup is knocking on the door
Oh, how many hours we waited
Feeling and sharing the euphoria
That every goal would brought together
A nation.. be it rich or poor”.

I have been a football fan since I . It never ceases to amaze me how many people around the world enjoy this game. The usual comment from those not interested was always the same “what do you see in a group of people running after a ball?”

Here’s what it is all about …
For me, football is akin to life…

Firstly, the game has a little entropy so it is unpredictable more often than not. One of the two countries playing might be slated to win but as long as the game is still in play, it has a 50-50 chance of winning. But then, this also applies to other sports but football has the element of chaos that increases with time because of the large number of variations presented by the players from the different countries.
Life’s like that too – the choices people make have a 50-50 chance of being a good one.

Secondly, football brings the world together. Whether a country is rich or poor, the game transcends race, religion or language differences. It embraces cultures, accepts diversity. The numerous disagreements and emotional outbursts to the referees’ decisions were always short lived as the game must go on. Without countries’ participation, there would be no game. This year, the tag line is ‘my game is fair play, say no to racism’. It is good enough for me that FIFA is trying to eradicate certain issues…..
Having said that, I suspect, as with life, the game would not be able to escape political influences and I would not delve further into this…………….. 🙂

Life’s like that too – without friends to have fun with, to disagree with and to share common interests with, there would be nada.

The game starts and stops every now and then and when a goal is scored, it would start again. Both teams attack and defend again and again just to get the ball into the goal. They formulate strategies, take advantage of opportunities to score, getting themselves hurt in the process and then, when the ball makes it past the two poles, every drop of sweat and every bit of hard work transform into ecstasy.

Last but not least, football is a passion for many people around the world. Some players become role models ( some not ), mentors and coaches after they can play no more. And the game continues…
Life’s like that too – no matter what we do, where we are, life should be a passion and continues…..

Football is …… a beautiful game…..
Life is…….. a beautiful game…..

This year this wonderful game has planted its fruits in the soil of South Africa. The qualification competition for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organized by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation—the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa),CONCACAF (North America), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania), and UEFA (Europe) — was allocated a certain number of the 32 places at the tournament. A total of 204 teams entered the qualification process, with South Africa, as the host, qualifying automatically. The first qualification matches were played on 25 August 2007 and qualification concluded on 18 November 2009. Overall, 2337 goals were scored over 848 matches.