Хөлбөмбөг сонирхогч хүүхдийн анхны Дэлхийн аварга шалгаруулах тэмцээний сэтгэгдэл нь спортын дүрэм журам болон хүлээлтээс давсан сэтгэл хөдөлгөм үйл явдал болж өрнөв.
Германы шигшээ багийн тоглолтыг үзэх үеэр довтлогч Дениз Ундав үндсэн цаг дуусахаас гурав хүрэхгүй минутын өмнө хожлын гоолыг оруулсан нь бяцхан хөгжөн дэмжигч Бастианы хувьд гэнэтийн бэлэг байлаа. Тоглолтын шүүгчийн шийдвэрт сэтгэл дундуур байсан хүү гоолын дараа баяр хөөрөө барьж дийлэлгүй, хөлбөмбөгийн гайхамшгийг мэдэрсэн юм. Тэрээр хожлын дараа өөрийгөө бүхнийг хийж чадах мэт санагдсан ч өрсөлдөгч Зааны ясан эрэг улсын тоглогчдыг өрөвдөж буйгаа илэрхийлжээ.
Тэмцээний хагас шигшээ тоглолтоор Франц болон Испани таарч, олон улсын хэмжээнд хүлээн зөвшөөрөгдсөн шилдэг баг болох Франц хожигдсон нь хүүгийн хувьд хөлбөмбөгийн урьдчилсан таамаг болон дүрэм журам хэрхэн өөрчлөгдөж болохыг харуулсан сургамж болсон юм. Майкл Олисегийн ганцаарчилсан сайн тоглолтоос бусад нь бүдгэрсэн тоглолтын дараа тэрээр хэсэг хугацаанд дуугүй болсон нь хөлбөмбөгийн урьдчилан тааварлашгүй байдлыг баталж байв.
Тэмцээний явцад Кабо-Верде зэрэг багуудын үзүүлсэн тоглолт нь хүүгийн хөлбөмбөгийн талаарх төсөөллийг өргөжүүлж, дэлхийн тавцанд бүх зүйл боломжтойг ойлгуулжээ. Улмаар энэхүү туршлага нь түүнийг бэлтгэл сургуулилтаа хийхдээ илүү зоригтой, бүтээлч байж, талбай дээр өөрийн гэсэн “ид шид”-ийг харуулахад түлхэц болсон байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
The midday sun was baking noses and limbs the way it is supposed to during a World Cup summer. Old friends in white shirts — oh, look, a rare 1990 World Cup winners jersey — hugged each other generously.
All the while, I was trying to keep forlorn feelings at bay.
On this blissful World Cup Saturday, I should have been soaking up barrels of lager before watching Germany kick off against Ivory Coast. Germany is the team I grew up supporting after my grandparents emigrated from Bad Wildungen to Canada by boat early in the 1950s. I learned about the Bundesliga and the virtues of Lothar Matthäus’ style of play when my peers were learning how to hold hockey sticks. And inevitably, my seven-year-old son learned about the virtues of Thomas Müller, how wonderful the summer of 2014 was and why his name is different from other kids at school: Bastian.
But the beer went down slowly. It was met with oppressing guilt. My son was watching Germany play live at the World Cup, and I was not there to experience it with him.
Soccer has become a fundamental joy in my son’s upbringing. He plays three times a week. Loose Panini stickers clutter our family room. As colleagues attest, I rarely stop yammering about his growing love for the game. And you only get one first World Cup.
Across the country, back in Toronto, Bastian was watching his first — and possibly only — World Cup game live. While I was covering Canada’s men’s national team, my wife had splurged to create a core memory for our son.
In Canada, this World Cup is meant to change the way a generation thinks about soccer. It is a sport that has been on the periphery for as long as it has existed in this country.
As colleagues tried to console me for missing out on watching the World Cup live with my son, they also wondered: How was he enjoying the tournament? What did it look like to him?
And maybe, is there anything we can learn from watching someone’s first World Cup through their eyes?
The first thing I’ve learned this summer: For my son (and I imagine many young soccer players) so much of playing soccer is dictated by rules.
“We’re leaving in 10 minutes for practice — otherwise, we’ll be late for warm-ups,” I’ll usually call Bastian from another room.
“I want to see a stepover as you approach the defender,” his coach might shout in that practice.
“Grab a sip of water then don’t be late, don’t be the last one back,” another will shout. (My German ancestry bubbles up into a smile at that one.)
When a seven-year-old watches the World Cup, though, something changes. His association with rules and the sport falls by the wayside. The World Cup becomes about expanding the limits of what is possible in the sport.
My son is plugged in enough to know that Bayern Munich almost always win in the Bundesliga, which makes it difficult for him to remain intrigued. He would rather watch a movie with a script that is new to him. He has been exposed to enough of the Premier League to know Manchester City, Arsenal or Liverpool are the regular favourites, because, well, that’s just the reality.
For a seven-year-old, a World Cup is about pushing the limits of imagination. When Bastian asks to watch soccer highlights, he almost always starts with “Germany vs Brazil, 7-1.”
“How did Germany do that when they were playing in Brazil?” he usually asks.
Lately, he’s been asking more to watch what he has learned was simply a World Cup qualifier: England 10, San Marino 0, from November 15, 2021.
“If it were the World Cup, who would win in a game?” he asks, “The whole San Marino team against Messi?”
I don’t want to ruin the possibilities for him with an answer, but I am not sure of the answer either.
With 48 teams (at least) in the World Cup, the quality of the soccer itself might have arguably gotten worse. But in the eyes of a child, a bigger World Cup has enlarged the possibilities.
The tournament strikes a nerve because it teeters on the edge of reality and fantasy. Bastian had never heard of the country of Cape Verde before, so watching Argentina struggle to score against them changed the way he thought about what a soccer team is capable of on a given day.
Then, on June 20, Bastian saw, in his alarmingly potent opinion, a referee make questionable calls that robbed Germany of goals.
“The fans were so happy the whole time. It costs a lot of money to get to the World Cup. I was happy I got to go,” he told me, before pausing to refresh his memories. “But the ref stank.”
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He likely would have started crying had Germany lost or drawn because of the rules the referee imposed. Those rules, they’re not fair to a seven-year-old. All he’s got around him are rules. His first World Cup game was destined to be like every other day as a seven-year-old: Ask to watch YouTube on his own, be met with a shaking head. Ice cream sandwiches after dinner only come when his plate has been put in the dishwasher.
Then, with less than three minutes remaining in stoppage time, German forward Deniz Undav turned expertly with the ball a few hundred feet from Bastian. The forward fired home a winning goal. Bastian, I was told, at first, didn’t know how to react. He was not expecting the goal, because the rules, man.
“My face looked like I’ve seen a ghost,” he told me.
The videos my wife sent me are of a delirious child, screaming beneath cheeks with the German flag painted on them.
“I felt like I could do anything,” he later told me. “I could dance, I could do anything. But I also felt bad for Ivory Coast.”
Jumping for joy at a live game in Toronto. (Joshua Kloke / The Athletic)
Nearly a month later, with Canada’s World Cup over, we were finally together to watch the first semifinal together. Bastian sat down on our couch with the reality he had learned over weeks’ worth of viewings: France was the best team in the tournament to that point. Even after he diplomatically announced “one team is going to have to win, and one team is going to have to lose”, he admitted confidently that France was going to win. Teams that good don’t lose, he argued.
And he genuinely believed that.
Then, his new reality set in.
Seasoned soccer fans watch the World Cup in part because of the allure of the unexpected. New fans become mystified by the World Cup in real time because it truly shifts how they think about the game.
“My favourite part about the World Cup is that some really bad teams make it to the World Cup,” Bastian said. “I don’t mean bad, because, like, if you make it to the World Cup, you’re a good team. But Bosnia made it to the World Cup! A lot of bad teams make it.”
(No disrespect is intended to the fine people of Bosnia and Herzegovina here. My son, like many, just struggled to understand how Bosnia beat Italy to qualify for the World Cup.)
Now, France was losing. His face scrunched.
How is this happening? he seemed to ask. Don’t the rules apply?
“I thought France was going to win,” he said. “But now, France is not doing well at all. Only Michael Olise is doing well. And all the other players are… stinky.”
Watching Spain beat France in the World Cup semifinal (Joshua Kloke / The Athletic)
By the final whistle, his quizzical look had turned to a frown. Once again, the script he understood to be written in stone had not been followed. France, he thought, was the better team. But the rules did not apply in the World Cup. He was quiet for a few minutes after the game.
A little over 24 hours later, I hollered as I often do for him to grab his soccer bag. Practice was starting soon.
Midway through the practice, one of his coaches called for a 1-v-1 drill. This time, though, there was a plot twist for the attacking players.
“Use a bit of magic,” the coach said. “Do something different with the ball, whatever move you want to make in the moment.”
Bastian briefly looked over at me and widened his eyes. Months earlier, the prospect of him making up the rules in soccer would have been overwhelming.
Instead, he quickly narrowed his gaze and nodded dramatically. He seemed ready to take control of the game and change the rules as Cape Verde, Germany, and Spain had.
With his first World Cup memories fresh in his mind, he arched his back and dribbled confidently toward the player in front of him.
