World Cup, between fights and hugs football stories in the Qatar desert

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Highways that cross the desert, almost plow it, until they are swallowed up by the dunes, by the sand; on the sides of the road, on one side and on the other, oil wells and refineries; further on however, where the desert (re)takes the upper hand, castles, strongholds, other souks. Engulfed by the mirage of football, through the stories of those who instead try to experience Qatar outside its stadiums, other landscapes, other stories, other lives emerge like mirages from the liquid horizon on which the endless skyscrapers of the West Bay rest.

Inside Qatar

It makes you want to dive into that sand and those dunes, to try to enter the soul of this country which, amidst scandals, contradictions, investments, sport-washing, has gained recognition in the good salons of the globe. Immersion postponed, at least until Sunday 18 December, when we will know who will lift the Cup designed by the Milanese master Silvio Gazzaniga to the sky. in short, a debate tailored to the world of football, because football has this sinister power, that of reducing not only ethics to its measure, but also politics, economics, religion and therefore also theology!

Tulips and Albiceleste

The reference to the brawls, tensions, mockery (and scorns) between Argentines and the Dutch is obvious: was the Albiceleste right to mock the tulips after the decisive penalty converted by Lautaro? Or was that reaction at least legitimized by the previous orange provocations, in a challenge that fits well as (until now) the last chapter of a mundial saga that surely someone is already thinking of making a film or a book out of it? An ethical question which – as often happens – leaves more questions than it resolves. Of course, football is a dirty thing, in all respects similar to the bipeds who play it and are passionate about it; and then, for those who want it, there will be a lot of work to be done at home to explain to that boy or girl that that mocking gesture or that provocation is not to be repeated on the field near the house, or on Sunday morning in the Pulcini championship match, because professional sport has its own rules, or rather its unique and unreproducible languages.

Neymar crying

On the other hand, the hug that a Neymar saddened to tears by the elimination suffered by the hand (and foot) of his father, however, should be reproducible as a gift to Leo, 10 years old, the son of Ivan Perisic; consequently, that hug, also of the one that Perisic himself had given to O’Ney shortly before, to console him after having inflicted on him one of the greatest bitternesses in his career. That’s if that dirty game that football manages to make even gestures like these sprout, then it will always be worth seeing a ball keep rolling, even among the dunes of a desert that seems to go on forever.