World Cup and the Olympics

With the World Cup commencing in a couple of days, it causes me to think of how it is taken in by people compared to the Olympics. An event involving one sport, Football, over an event that involves multiple others.

The Cup is relatively younger than the Games by comparison. Actually, there’s really no comparison at all in terms of age simply because the Games has been around a whole lot longer. But which one is more popular? The former is fondly called the World Sport while the latter is the Most Prestigious Sporting Event. However, the Cup has made a name for itself in terms of bringing out each person’s pride and patriotism for their respective country and is the most prestigious in the Football world. Come to think of it, what other sport can bring nations together as Football can? Well — apart from Cricket, that is. Football is the sport that created the most loyal and notoriously fanatic of supporters.

The Olympics offers grandeur and marvel whenever it comes around. It celebrates sportmanship and friendship among participating countries. It is a plus that the event is open for all. It goes the same for the World Cup, that is, during the qualifying round. Whereas for the Games, as long as your country can fund a team of athletes that can compete against the world’s best during the trials then you’ve become part of it.

Anyway, reading an article that delves into the same idea pointed out something signicant,

“The World Cup represents an entirely different experience to the Olympics – an agglomeration of mostly trivial and/or impenetrable sporting contests which gains its traction by sheer size and slightly artificial grandeur. Most of the nationalistic fervour of the Olympics is expended on the staging of it.” — Matthew Engel, FT.com

Do you agree? I have to admit that I did in some strange way. It’s because whenever I think of the Olympics, I think of the event as a whole and not the individual sport or team or athlete. Well, not unless something notable happened or the athlete or team did something remarkable. You see, I never found myself going out of my way to watch it. I’m just happy to read the newspaper or go through historical records of the Olympics.

But whenever the World Cup is around, it triggers me to go to the sports bar or to get together at a friend’s house to watch and support my team. It has a more significant effect on me. But I realised something, as what the article also pointed out, it’s because I love the sport. It can’t be because I’m patriotic, not unless the Philippines can produce ballers that are comparable to Ronaldino or Owen. I’m merely a supporter.

My personal opinion, the Olympics offer theatrics and ceremonies that the audience appreciate. The Cup doesn’t have that. The latter provides a venue for us to exercise our love of the game and at the same time, nationalism, though minimal. The former offers us both but it’s the athletes who get more from it and we’re just spectators.