Football thoughts on the World Cup from FAU historian adjunct Prof. Nicole Grochowina
“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you, it’s much more important than that.” This remark by Scottish footballer William Shankly (1913–1981) highlights the serious dimension of football – and also raises the question of whether football is a religion. After all, religion, too, transcends life and death. Just before the World Cup, this question is once again a popular one, as not only the pre-World Cup rituals take hold, but the football god must also be approached and appeased.
Rituals, chants, and the unconditional belief in victory
Given the assessments directly from football’s inner circle, which emphasize the seriousness and existential dimension of football and undoubtedly find support in countless fan camps, it is almost surprising that research on football as religion remains rather reserved. Yes it seems that the “football god” is repeatedly invoked, everyone knows the “Miracle of Bern,” and perhaps even the “miracles on the Weser” (1987, 1988, 2007). Rituals, chants, and the unconditional belief in victory – even at 0-5 in the 70th minute – could also pass as religious elements. After all, devout Christians behave little differently with prayers, liturgies, and the unconditional belief in the Easter miracle and thus in a life beyond death. What makes research reserved, however, is the lack of a transcendental reference in football. In other words: Even the talk of the “football god” is seen in research more as an analogical fallacy, as a narrative – perhaps even as an ironically deployed narrative in the face of victory or defeat – and the “Hand of God” (Maradona) is more a rule-breaking human intervention than divine intervention.
“… the ‘Hand of God’ is more a rule-breaking human intervention than divine intervention.”
Adjunct Prof. Nicole Grochowina
In the end, what remains is what research calls the phenomenon of effervescence, viewing football as a space of collectively lived, extraordinary, and transcendent passion, where rituals are practiced, joy and sorrow are shared, and a new reality is created – one that, however, after 90 or 120 minutes, or at the latest after the penalty shootout, gradually and ultimately ever more significantly loses its immediate capacity to excite. Indeed, during the match and immediately afterward, it is about more than life and death, but this second reality soon enough succumbs to the demands of everyday life. In the end, it becomes clear: Football is a passion, but not a source of consolation. At least not for long. Offering consolation, however, belongs – as does being grounded in something transcendent and beyond human control – to a substantive concept of religion. Only a functionalist concept of religion could thus bring football close to religion, because it emphasizes community, shared experience, and the identity-forming power within it.
What happens afterward?
But what happens when the stories are fully told and no longer console? What happens when defeats rain down? What happens when one’s own luck and blessing rituals have lost their supposedly magical power? What can console us then? It is precisely these questions that can answer whether football is a religion.
In this respect, what Bill Shankly says is true: For a football fan, football is more than life and death. But the wise words of Sepp Herberger are equally true: “The ball is round, and a game lasts 90 minutes.” It is precisely in this time that the uncontrollable unfolds, that effervescence and relief alternate, that collective narratives are born – narratives that take hold in the days to come, but rarely in the weeks that follow. Yet after 90 or 120 minutes, this wave subsides, because the first reality replaces the second. And consolation is more likely to be found elsewhere. In this sense, football is serious – very serious, in fact – but it is not religion. In this spirit: May the World Cup begin, and may teams like Cape Verde, Bosnia, Curaçao, or Haiti surprise us and prompt us to ask anew about the merciful “football god.”
Contact:
Adjunct Prof. Nicole Grochowina
Chair of Early Modern History
nicole.grochowina@fau.de