How to watch football

Henry Kleist, the most sane of German romantics, has a strange essay in which he quotes the recognition of an invincible fencer who had to fight with a bear:

“Moreover,” says the master of Rapira, “that he retorted all my blows, he simply did not accept false attacks: looking into my eyes, he, as if seeing my soul in them, stood with his paw raised to strike and, if my attacks were deceiving, did not move.

“We see,” Kleist comments, “that the more foggy and weaker the mind in the organic world, the more brilliant and won the grace acts in it.”

Where the price of the defeat is too large, we cannot rely on such a relatively new invention as the mind. The body is ancient, and therefore wiser than it

The described duel intelligibly explains what Kleist, the subtleties of the martial art of samurai could not guess. They were always won by the one who knew how to turn off his brain, reaching the state of "mu -shin"-"unconscious." Having parted with the control of reason, the fighter absentmindedly followed what was happening, without fixing attention (looking at the sheet, we do not see a tree). Relying on the extracted body, the samurai forced himself to forget about the skill gained by training. Only when the artlessness was turned into unpredictability, did he strike, unexpected for both opponents.

This suggests that where the price of the defeat is too high, we cannot rely on such a relatively new invention as the mind. The body is an ancient mind, and therefore wiser than it. Is it because at school the most goals are scored most of the heads? In any case, our best striker was attributed to my works for 10 years. His surname, by the way, was Medvedev.

I myself, having failed to distinguish myself even in courtyard football, all my life is learning to watch him without looking back. The egregious simplicity of football rules speaks of the perfection of this game. As in sex or chess, nothing can be invented here or even more to improve - we are not given to exhaust what is already there. At the same time, football recognizes only complete self -forgetfulness. He completely excludes you from life, for which you are grateful to him. The pleasure comes only when we follow the field, like a cat after a sparrow. The muscles stony from this spectacle. After all, football is non -notosted as time. The situation here is as close as possible to the combat - a long expectation fraught with an explosion. What is happening in the middle of the field resembles a trench warfare. Endless work, coaching thoughtfulness and dull perseverance do not guarantee decisive advantages. Complex configurations made up of players and passes, ephemeral frosty patterns on glass - they are also easy to erase.

The goal can be a continuation of the game, but it can cross out everything created by it. Unjust, like life, football and logical is no more than it

Nevertheless, we closely monitor the tactical drawing, knowing that perseverance is a necessary, though not sufficient condition for victory. Sometimes, however, you plunge into the game so deeply that you begin to foresee its outcome. Under the hysterical stack of view, reality is thickening to the limits beyond which the future lets the sprouts into the present. Feeling their movement, you whisper to yourself "now begging", hoping to finally become a prophet. But, as with them, this rarely happens and always out of place. The secret of football is that there is no direct causal dependence between the game and the naked. The causal connection here is hidden so deeply that it, as in love, cannot be seen, nor understand, nor calculate. Of course, the goal is born in the thick of events, but it is also not like them as a sperm to a person.

The nonlinearity of football is the key to its existence. Unlike those achievements that are determined by meters and seconds, football is deprived of measure and sequence. The goal can be a continuation of the game, but it can cross out everything created by it. Unjust, like life, football and logical is no more than it. Sometimes those who know how to play. Often, those who forgot about it win. Football, as already mentioned, does not allow me to think - they don’t play their heads here, but they beat, preferably on goal. Denying intelligence and prohibiting mind, football exposes its essence: this is a game of instincts. Only those who know how to trust them more than themselves drive the ball into the net. Football is unpredictable and this is beautiful. In the century, when the abundance of synthetic emotions only enhances the touch hunger, we are infinitely grateful to football for the pre -infarction intensity of a whole month of magical surprises.

Alexander Genis is a New York writer and publicist, author and host of the American Hour program on top of the barriers

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