What Passion Looks Like: The World Cup Rant

This year is one of THOSE years.

Yeah, the World Cup will happen in Russia and I wanted to share 2 great scenes of the life movie that football has given me. To every single football fan there are WAY more than just 2 memories, moments, life memories that scar and brand our lives. And if there is One thing I enjoy more than telling stories I have lived through, it's listening to other people's stories!

1998 - France

I had the great opportunity to be in France that year in the month that the world cup was playing. I remember driving long and beautiful landscape-filled-hours from Denmark all the way to the south of France to a small town called Bagnols-en-Foret. This peaceful place was where we slept and ate at night while in the days that we were there we went to the beautiful beaches of Frejus and Saint Raphael.

France qualified to the final game against Brazil. The once small and peaceful town I knew (it was not our first time going to southern France for the summer) became a metropolis with large screen projectors and hundreds and hundreds of french people and maybe a dozen Brazilian supporters, which included my parents that had decided they were going to support the latin-american team over the european.

The thing is, I was born only 5 years before this world cup, so I can barely remember things of when I was at such a young age. However, this night I remember VERY CLEARLY, I remember the final score, I remember that even when they were up 3-0 the french people prayed until the very last whistle of the game. I remember asking my mother "is this what happiness looks like?" to which she of course laughed and said "yes dave, this is exactly what crazy-happiness looks like". I recall the face of old men and young kids my age jumping as if they were the same age... I remember that my parents joined the celebration because we were neither Brazilian nor French; I remember the whole in my stomach I could not explain but was certain it had to do with the tears coming out of 3 out of every 5 people that surrounded me. I saw more hugs than I could count, more cheers than I could hear, more partying than I could understand... After all I was quite young... but that day I fell in love with football.

2014 - Mexico

A completely different story took place 16 years and 4 world cups later. We come to the Brazil World Cup. Groups stage, Costa Rica was the surprise to have won against Uruguay in the first game, but now came the true tour de force, the true test: We had to play Italy. The 4 times world cup champions with some of the best players in the world, including some of my personal favorites like Gianluigi Buffon. - First a small explanation of how much my dad loves football: he came from a humble family, when he got his first job and salary he spent it almost all on his family. A very important part was taking his 2 younger brothers to the stadium to watch their favorite football team. Since that day ALL of my family (except for me -longstory-) support that team. -

As football fans both my dad and I were ABSOLUTELY scared to the bone of what could happen to our beloved Costa Rican team (humiliation was a possibility against an A-class team like Italy). So, we decided to take a small father and son vacation to Cancun, Mexico (yeah that's how stressed we were). Cancun is VERY touristic, ergo loads of different nationalities were staying at the hotel we were, and it being the world cup they all wanted to watch the games. The hotel had a large projector placed all day to show the games and when Costa Rica vs. Italy was going to play there were around 10 Italians, about a dozen people from other countries, 20-25 Mexicans and me and my dad from Costa Rica. The game started and in the most unexpected manner ever it actually was quite evenly played. The tension was palpable, as the Italians yelled, me and my dad scuffed at their complaints and vice-versa... But the rest of the viewers began supporting the favorites until the end of the first half: Costa Rica goal! Me and my dad knew there were still 45 minutes to go so we yelled little and applauded a lot, hugged each other and felt the death stare from the Italians. But as the minutes went by, and the clock turned into our favor, one by one the Mexicans started to support Costa Rica, then the other Europeans and in the last 5 minutes of the game the Italians were by far the minority.

The final whistle came... Costa Rica was through to the knockout stage with one game to spare... everyone except the 2 Costa Ricans were screaming and jumping... We could not understand if this was real... (to be continued)

This second story in Mexico has a very detailed second part that I will bring in a later post but I can explain the happiness through a very passionate commercial linked below: