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A-CUTE ANGLE

Tight and to the point.
Fresh Perspective.
Blessed with a squint eye, I was born looking
at the same thing from different angles.

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Pitch
Referee Pierluigi Collina

90 minutes, that’s all the beautiful game lasts for.
Then the referee blows their whistle and off we go to spend the rest of our hours, days and weeks admiring or arguing about the things we had seen in that time - with anybody who will listen  or is courteous enough to pretend to; Until it is time for the referee to blow the whistle once again– this time to signal the beginning of another 90, another story.

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However trivial this may seem to an outsider, these conversations about those 90 minutes fostered a bond that transcends the decade that has passed since a football match involving a much-loved club first brought us together.
Over time, some may have moved countries and learnt new languages, yet the football talk hasn’t stopped, slowed, or changed - Except for the swearing - it now occurs in seven different languages.

I’ve shared this story with you to illustrate how a sport can make strangers much more than that.

We all came together over a club, pun intended.
(Especially when Liverpool won the title in the 2019-2020 season).

 

Competitive sport isn’t war.
It’s just shy of it.

LFC

anirudhmalladi.com

On a university campus a decade ago, college teens began to meet each other every weekend for a sacred ritual – watching a football match.
In a perennially damp ‘common room,’ with uncomfortable wooden benches and a TV – those teens nurtured a kinship that revolved around their mutual admiration for Liverpool Football Club.

Currently, the members of this sect are situated across three continents, five time zones and are no longer teens.
Even so, every matchday, in-between matchdays, and any other days that are not either types of days; this group comes together to revel in the team’s success or pin the blame on someone or for a loss. Sometimes, we also wish each other on our birthdays.

It is a beautiful game – football. No other sport comes this close to mimicking life itself.
It performs this feat on a green canvass; bordered by white lines, surrounded by passionate, adoring crowds.
Football – is sometimes blindingly fast or achingly slow.
A story of mistakes made and opportunities contrivied.
It makes heroes and villains, often, out of the same person.
It features plans that are executed to perfection or fail spectacularly.
It offers redemption to the fallen and humbles those who have yet to.
It is colourful, sometimes grey, but never black and white.
It embarresses, taunts, inspires, and envelopes - but never lets you go.
It does all this in the space of 90 minutes.
Oh Football! you are indeed the beautiful game.   

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