Football is universal in every way, unlike basketball or weightlifting, it can be played to a high standard by people of every shape and size. It appeals to both sexes and does not rely, like golf or tennis or equestrianism or most other sports, on pricey equipment or particular terrain. A scrap of wasteland and a ball fashioned from rags will do; with these basics, any child can aspire to the artistry of Lionel Messi. This is not romantic twaddle but the actual origin of some great players of the past, including the supreme figure of Pelé.
Football has the obvious superiority of not being essentially violent. Its beauty is summed up by a small man evading, even mastering, those who would try to impose their cynical power on him. If you watch sequences of Diego Maradona in action, you see the ultimate victory of skill over force.
Though meritocratic, football can be very cruel because scoring is low and margins narrow. Google “Champions League final 1999” and share the explosive joy of 50,000 people as their team—which has played poorly and is losing deservedly after 90 minutes—scores twice in the short time allowed for stoppages to overcome a team that has played well. One of United’s players, Gary Neville, found the mot juste: “supernatural”. Note the Bayern players. Several are prone, lifeless, as if downed by arrows of fate. One of the most experienced, Stefan Effenberg, was reluctant even to talk about it five years later.
Being the fairest and unfairest of all games helps to make football the most morally interesting. It does not make it the most admirable, and the passions it has unleashed have led to, among other tragedies, the crushing to death of 39 supporters before the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus in 1985. That the greatest game, like most great civilisations, has blood on its hands may diminish its pride, but not its scale and scope. It is the game that has everything.
