The World Cup concludes Sunday, so I had to write a column about football!
The World Cup isn’t a religious event, but it has religion-like elements such as pilgrimages to matches, shared songs and rituals, “saints” like Messi and Ronaldo and, for many, a deep devotion to a team.
Religion has been evident during games, too, with some players from the Christian tradition crossing themselves after scoring goals and some Muslim players performing sujood, the Islamic act of bowing down in submission and gratitude to God, after scoring.
Before he died, Spanish journalist and essayist Manuel Vázquez Montalbán observed that football has actually become a “secular religion” in some countries. At a time when people were leaving traditional religion, football creates communities of belonging, he said, providing rituals and symbols, heroes like the saints of old and a sense of shared identity.
And then there were those in Brazil who blamed the rise of evangelicalism in that country for their team’s loss.
Read more in my Free Press column.
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