These last two months, much of the world has been glued to the soccer (football) World Cup, the Bower household included. 48 nations in all were represented by their team’s best and brightest. 70-90 thousand people in stadiums across Canada, US, and Mexico packed in to watch each of the 104 games throughout the tournament. Watch parties were held in homes, pubs, and in the streets of cities and towns across the globe. In all, without doubt, billions of people were involved, across every language and border.
Those watching, where ever they found themselves, were tied to outcomes that uniformly held them in suspense, regardless of who they cheered for. Fans wore jerseys of countries they’ve never visited, cheering for teams that aren’t “theirs”. Rooting for the underdog, celebrating an amazing play, shouting for a foul, each person tied together through one experience. The groans of defeat, or the elation of a win, felt in places like Ohio, Lagos, Seoul, and São Paulo, simultaneously.
Obviously, I love these types of world events. I can’t help but feel our interconnection. I love the stories of how a country made the tournament, or how a particular player dreamed, practiced, and sacrificed just to be able to play on that stage. And then to see and feel their joy as they experience the fruits of their hard work.
Cabo Verde is a great example of this. This small island nation off the West coast of Africa, with a population of 500,000 people, for the first time, made it into the World Cup (when other countries like Italy did not). They shocked the tournament more by making it through the initial group stage into the round-of-32. Although, they lost in that round against the defending world champions, Argentina. However, it was the way that they lost that captured the hearts across the world. In the first half, Argentina’s Lionel Messi, arguably one of the best players in the world, scored his record-extending 20th World Cup goal of his career. It’s the kind of moment that usually settles a match against a small nation. But that wasn’t what was celebrated at all by the end of the match.
Without losing heart, in the last minutes of regulation time, Cabo Verde scores, tying the match and sending it to extra time! Then, Argentina retook the lead, only to be answered by Cabo Verde AGAIN with a curling strike from the edge of the box (a goal now being talked about as one of the best of the tournament). It was a moment of pure shock and elation. In the end, Argentina won 3-2, and Cabo Verde was eliminated, but they left having taken the champions to the brink of the biggest upset in World Cup history. And one major focus of the game was placed on the Vozinha, Cabo Verde’s 40-year-old goalkeeper, due to a string of saves keeping his team alive against outstanding plays.
It was thrilling to witness such diligence and determination. The outcome (a loss) isn’t the point; it was the effort and composure under impossible odds is. And the 40-year-old keeper represented a quiet argument for practice over flash, not as a young, raw talent, but a disciplined presence sustained over decades. Although, it should also be said that Argentina’s players persevered, finishing the match while cramping in the Miami heat. Even “the favorite” was tested to its physical limit by a team a fraction of its size and resources, remaindering us that no advantage is ever secure or fixed.
But in the end, it was Cabo Verde’s refusal to be small. They showed repeated effort without the guarantee of reward, demonstrating a level of viriya character worth remembering. What’s more heart-warming even still, was the welcome the team received when arriving back in their home country, for whom the team’s efforts meant the most. Cabo Verde didn’t win the match. But for 120 minutes, half a million people reminded eight billion what effort without attachment to outcome actually looks like.
It wasn’t only the players and teams that made headlines. There are the numerous stories of North American fans celebrating the World Cup, and welcoming tourists coming to our countries. All across the US, travelers were witnessing an America behind the newsreels that they’ve heard about in their own country. They bore witness to a welcoming, generous and gracious population of people, which completely caught many off-guard considering the harsh, authoritarian disposition one might assume when only considering the actions of those government officials who represent us.
There’s the story of Lawrence, Kansas, the home of Algeria’s national team. It’s a college town (University of Kansas), of about 96,000 people. The bid for this role took real, sustained effort, with preparations began years in advance, with the University of Kansas, Explore Lawrence, and city government partnering to argue that even a small city could host on the World Cup stage. The university marching band learned and played the Algerian national anthem to welcome the team; two women at KU, an Arabic lecturer and a professor of African and African American Studies, helped prepare the town practically, including brushing up on Arabic, French, and halal food needs so the community could host well, not just symbolically; around 400 residents showed up simply to greet the team on arrival at their base camp, and 2,500 fans later packed the university’s stadium for an open training session, while children filled the stands waving Algerian flags and singing “One two three, Viva L’Algérie!” All of which was deeply meaningful to the entire Algerian team. One of the organizers, Stan Herd put it best, “it’s not about football, it’s about cultures coming together, it’s about shared humanity.”
Granted, there is always drama and controversy when it comes to the World Cup. Whether it’s with certain calls and outcomes of games, bad sportsmanship and dirty play, or even corruption of the FIFA organization itself. And although present, those were not the primary stories being told. They were drowned by the out-pouring of continual demonstrations of our shared humanity.
Personally, watching so many of the games with my kids (7 and 10), and watching them experience these types of stories was very meaningful. We got to talk about what it means to put in hard work, what it is to persevere, how to stay focused, what good sportsmanship looks like, how to be a good winner and a good loser, how to be a good host country, etc. And it made me realize just how much we were talking about basic Buddhist principles; generosity, ethics and morality, energy and forbearance, sympathetic joy, right speech, right action, and so on.
We had a chance to explore what it means to be a world-wide “us”, to celebrate a team that may not be our own, take delight in the flourishing of beings who do not look like us, share our culture, or share our background. In the end, none of this was really about who won or lost. It’s that millions of strangers finding, for one month, that the boundary between “us” and “them” was thinner than anyone had believed. Indra’s Net doesn’t need a stadium to be true, but this summer, for a little while, we got to see it manifest.
Love and Gassho,
Koshin