A footballing experience

I played soccer on Thursday night with a group of lads from work, Serbs and Italians, and me. It was such a bad experience, and I won't be playing with them again. But it was also fascinating to be part of the experience. I was rotating every 10 minuets with Marco, so I was able to play and watch these middle aged guys get progressively more angry and aggressive as the hour bore on. I knew before the match ended that this would be my only appearance with this group.

You see, for me football is like a hobby. I take it seriously, I try to play well, I work hard, but it has to be relaxing and fun. If it is not, there is no point to it. I am 28, I will never be a pro, nor will I ever get much better than I am now (without serious training), so all I can hope for is to maintain my level, and have fun playing this beautiful game. This philosophy is not shared by the Thursday evening crew.

Granted, they play at a slightly higher level than me, but their attitude is so hyper aggressive, that no-one has any pleasure in playing. They spend most of the game yelling at each other every time a pass is miss hit, or every time a shot goes wide. I took a lot of abuse for my weak passing. If I was in training with Cvezda or Partizan, then I could understand the shouting. But guys, we are playing a 5-a-side match, we are all of us never going to be pro-players, so relax and enjoy it!

The yelling continued after the game. As all the men returned to the changing room they were arguing over the bad passes and missed opportunities. I never felt like it was going to get violent, but they were practically screaming at each other. What I found hilarious about all this was, that as these men were arguing vigorously, they were also getting naked in front of each other. They then all went into the shower, to wash down in front of each other, where the shouting continued. A great juxtaposition I must say.

What I take away from this, because if I take nothing away from this then the evening really was a waste, is that these men exposed the mechanism with-in team sports which can encourage domination, aggression and eventually violence. The desire for victory is so strong with these men that they are willing, even on such an insignificant occasion, to let themselves get angry at their friends for not finding the back of the net. It is the engagement in the activity of football that brings out this attitude and mental state.

Of course, I can only speculate why they get this way, but if I had to guess, I would say they feel a level of frustration in other parts of their lives. Football is the only moment they have to release physical energy, and as soon as the lid is off on this tension, it quickly boils over into aggression.

I have the exact opposite experience every Sunday with my team. We are relaxed before, during and after the game. We take shots from the most improbable angles, we miss hit passes all the time, yet no-one yells at us. In short, we have fun while we play because we have no pretensions about what we are on the pitch. We are a group of young guys who enjoy kicking a ball around. Period.

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I was meditating today and became aware of how all my thoughts were directed towards what I saw a missing from my life. Every thought started with 'I need' or 'I should' or 'I want'. I wasn't spending anytime thinking about what I have, what is now.