Football’s beautiful month

BEFORE we even venture into the emotional fanfare of the 2018 Fifa World Cup, which will have us feverish and enthralled over the next month, let’s just put it out there right at the beginning: it’s a pity, a huge, huge pity, that Bafana Bafana have, again, failed to qualify for football’s greatest show.

The World Cup kicks off in Russia today and while 32 nations across the world will be firmly behind their teams, South Africans are at home watching on television. Imagine what Bafana’s presence at the tournament could have done for national pride?

Nevertheless, life and football go on. It waits for no man or team. If you aren’t a football fan, can we suggest you book a plane to Mars; the only topic of conversation – in buses, taxis and carpools, in pubs, braais and living rooms, around water coolers, desks and cubicles – will be the World Cup. And the beauty of football, the only truly global sport, is that it will be the same all over the planet. From Mitchells Plain to Mongolia, Gugulethu to Greenland and Durbanville to Denmark, the only language spoken over the next month is football. It’s a language we all understand; it’s a language that highlights our common humanity.

Prepare for a roller-coaster ride of drama and emotion as the World Cup plays itself out in Russia. The favourites are Germany, Brazil, France, Spain and Argentina, while the African challenge is spearheaded by Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. The names on our lips will be Messi, Ronaldo, Salah and Mbappe – and there will, of course, be new heroes to adopt.

There will be joy and pain, love and hate, hope and regret, tears, jeers and cheers – but, above all, there will be passion: the word is, after all, synonymous with football. The entire globe will be hypnotised for the next month.

For any footballer, the World Cup is the ultimate; it’s what any kid aspires to the very first time he is introduced to a ball. So, Bafana or no Bafana, let’s all enjoy the football.