Football is Drama

By Pablo I. Castrillo Men are mistakenly believed to nurture their spirits solely out of films and football. This is an unforgivable simplification. Men also cultivate their minds and souls out of conversations and endless discussions about films and football. It is a significant difference, deliberately ignored by some. And for many, it is the unfair yoke that women, in their victimized fight of sexes, have imposed upon men. The true error hides in considering films and football as two different things, when they really come down to the same, one, simple element: drama. That is, the story of a character who encounters conflict and struggles to overcome it, giving rise to emotions in the audience. Somebody tell me what part of drama is not football. Or vice versa. Football shares in the scenic nature of plays and films: drama unfolds on stage, as much as football does in a stadium. The turf is the proscenium, where the footballers are actors. The conflict is served, in a specially visual manner: left side, blue jersey versus right side, red jersey. Drama can also take place on screen, of course, whether in the movie theater or the ESPN Sports Center, but dont forget: a perfect enjoyment requires a collective experience, where the audience shares in the laughs and tears, the screams, the wows, and the boos. How could anyone ask a good man not to gather his friends around the TV on a Saturday night? Or would a good man in his right mind ask her sweetheart never to go on a date? Its simply unconceivable. Identification with the character, empathy and sympathy, also take place in football. We love the proverbial chivalry of Steven Gerard or Ryan Giggs, while we despise the ludicrous conceitedness of Cristiano Ronaldo and Mario Ballotelli. As much as Hollywood does, the professional leagues all over the world make use of their own star system. Sir David Beckham, say, embodies the perfect example of the public persona that is worshipped by audiences and investors even when his career has been going downhill for a few years. It is more or less like casting Alec Baldwin or Tom Cruise in the musical flop Rock of Ages. More importantly, football also follows a Dramatic Structure. Like every story ever told, the game goes through status quo, conflict, and resolution. The ordinary world of the unblemished scoreboards is suddenly crushed when a ball touches the net, and then it is the duty of the characters to push back hard and return the conflict to balance. Isnt that what protagonists and antagonists do all the time? This fight between good and evil, once one has taken sides gives rise to a tension that grows thanks to a very simple and omnipresent narrative device: A ticking clock. There is a deadline by which the hero must return chaos to order. And if he doesnt meet the deadline, everything will be lost. The stakes can be three relatively important points at the beginning of the season, or whether to qualify or not for the finals of the Cup. But the clock ticks, inexorable. And the tension and suspense grow. When Cesc Fbregas took his penalty shot in the finals of the Euro 2012, the hearts of millions of people all over the world stopped for a long fraction of a second as they saw the goalie guessing the right trajectory of the ball. We saw his fingertips flying millimeters away from deflecting the shot. But that was not all: the ball hit the left post and bounced off holding the screams of joy back, halfway through our throats until it finally landed on

the right side of the nets. Exhilaration ensued, like it does during the final credits of a good action film. Football is also full of memorable images. Panenkas 1976 first-time-ever slow-motion penalty shot. Van Bastens 1988 volley goal against the USSR. Ronaldo Nazarios incredible play against Compostela in 1996, where he outran and dribbled half a team. Rivaldos bicycle-kick in 2001 against Valencia. Zidanes 2002 goal against Bayer Leverkusen that earned Real Madrid their 9th Champions League. Moments that arise passion, excitement, anger, sadness, joy. Thats what drama is all about: emotions. For further reference, consult Nick Hornbys Fever Pitch. The big difference, one might argue, relies on the spontaneous character of the beautiful game: Aristotle would define drama as mimesis praxeos, the imitation of an action. An imitation of life portrayed on the stage as a heightened reality. Football, however, is unscripted. Denmark won the European Championship of 1992 against all odds. So did Greece in Portugal, 2004. A year later, on May 25th 2005, at the Ataturk Stadium, Istanbul, something happened that was too hard to believe: Liverpools impossible comeback at the Finals of the UEFA Champions League from a 3-0 against a legendary AC Milan. The drawing goal scored by Xabi Alonso at the rebound of a penalty kick was the paradigm of suspense taken to the limit. It was all unscripted, yes. But like the best dramas, its effect was the odd pleasure of the unpredictable. A feeling we all shared when Keyser Sze blew our minds at the end of Usual Suspects. Or when we met Anthony Perkins real Norman Bates at the closing of Psycho. Football is a fiction that takes us to a different universe where our disbelief is put in suspension. Epic is possible in ordinary life, as in Spielbergs backyard adventures of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial or Back To The Future. Thats the exhilarating beauty of drama. We are all heroes ready to face giants. Former Newcastle United player Andy Harper said it in his already overworked quote: for ninety minutes in a rectangular piece of grass, people can forget hopefully, whatever might be going on in their life, and rejoice in this communal celebration. Football is drama. Collective experience. Vicarious enjoyment. Emotional catharsis. And thanks to its spontaneity, its actually one of the best plays never written. If that makes sense, at all.