By In response to the article “More Than a Game: The Deep Charm of Sports in Audiences,” Professor Ricardo Andrés Pérez from the University of Tolima shares a biographical chronicle on his fondness for playing football and the visual appeal of this sport.
By Ricardo Andrés Pérez
To begin with, football is a pleasure of life, hence, a passion. That is why, from a young age, I played in pastures, streets, and dusty courts like those in the Timiza Park neighborhood where I grew up in Bogotá. My father also played a lot of neighborhood football with Deportivo San Francisco in Bucaramanga, Colombia.
I played various forms of the game, from casual street matches to more structured mini-football, enjoying any variant as long as it was rooted in football. We played with balls, homemade, official (professional), of all sizes – what mattered was to start the movement, the challenge, and kick.
While studying at the National University (U.N.), I continued my football career by studying “football”, cinema, and television. A significant part of the course involved playing football matches in the fields and courts around the School of Cinema and Television building, one of the most remote sites from any of the entrance gates to the U.N. It was an absolute fever that did not stop; just like the passion that led me to study cinema.
In any case, it should be clarified that the ultimate pleasure for me was, and is, playing; watching it lessens the passion unless I am part of the team I am watching or I can perfectly imagine my participation.
This narrative not only highlights the personal journey of Professor Pérez with football but also reflects the broader appeal of the sport, both in terms of participation and its visual spectacle. Football’s capacity to unite people, evoke strong emotions, and offer visually captivating moments inspires passion for many worldwide.
Football, like cinema, is a form of visual and auditory moving image, thus constituting a cinematic event. Like cinema, video, and audiovisual media in general, football captivates perception through visual and auditory movement, creating an illusion similar to what we experience through analog or digital screens. This is because our perception of movement is based on retinal persistence. In this perceptual phenomenon, our brain retains an image and fills in the missing parts, creating the illusion of motion. In audiovisual devices, the complete capture of movement is not present; instead, there are still images or frames that our brain completes when two or more images closely describe something within fractions of a second. This explains the use of 8, 16, and 24 frames per second in analog cinema technology and 25, 30, or more fields in electromagnetic and later digital video technology.
Playing football often requires imagining where the ball will go, jumping with the improbability of catching it or envisioning a trajectory because opponents or teammates obscure it. One cannot always see where the ball is due to its speed; we also imagine its path and envision constructing the most excellent and most incredible play of our lives, the superior dribbling, the nutmeg, the feint to sweeten and deceive the opponent, the precise and goal-scoring pass, the perfect measure of time and distance for the forward to arrive and gently nestle the ball into the amorous bed that is the opponent’s net. The three dimensions of the cinematic event—Time, Space, and Movement—are present in football, offering plays and narratives of reality and fantasy. Football and life combine to form art.
In football, listening, action, and reaction are fundamental elements for performing a scene. It has excellent spontaneity and can create unique and unrepeatable moments even though they are replayed repeatedly on the screen. Such a unique moment is a play in football like the goal scored by Albeiro Usurriaga (forward for the Colombian national team, and figure at Independiente de Avellaneda in Argentina and Nacional de Medellín) to draw against Israel in 1989, thus qualifying for the Italy 1990 World Cup: a unique and unrepeatable moment.
Football has a staging with eleven actors on each side and rules that are often bent; there’s a tactic and strategy for each team, but in neighborhood football with a coach, this is more precise. Regardless of the presence of a coach, there are one or several leaders in the team who will form a tactic, a strategy, and a style of play, and then comes the passion of the game, the confrontation that is a metaphor for struggles in life where one can be loyal or not. This is where the ingenious play, intelligence and body, cunning and feint, the unexpected pass, physical and mental agility, imagination, and brilliant improvisation come into play, leading to victory with a better game. Still, once there is a goal, everything is confirmed. The best plays can be made, an artistic display with the ball, but until the world (or the ball) hits the net between the three posts, there will be no climax nor the ecstasy of victory.
Football can be fiction, documentary, spleen (melancholy, introspection), total boredom, monetary transaction, or poetry. The best kind is fiction, documentary, and poetry. Football has been recorded by devices that capture motion since the 1920s, with the German film “The Eleven Devils” (Die elf Teufel) (1927) by Zoltan Korda, where the typical drama of the rich vs. poor is already glimpsed in this case on a playing field.
Numerous films explore football or are themed around it. Yet, there are also specific movies whose dramas encompass other aspects of the human condition but, at a certain point, illustrate how football serves as an escape and joy, passion, and glory. An example of this is in the film “Comme un aimant” (2000) by Akhenaton and Kamel Saleh, which portrays the lives of young people in a working-class neighborhood in Marseille (France), several of whom end up dead. Before the climax, there’s a poetic scene recalling when the whole group of youths played football on the beach, highlighting this as a moment of happiness and joy in their short lives, especially since some die entangled in criminal activities.
A similar theme is found in “Together” (“Tillsammans” 2000), directed by Lukas Moodysson, which revolves around a family that finds new cohesion within a libertarian commune of the 1970s in Sweden. After leaving an abusive husband who is a fan of the national team and a local club, a woman and her children discover a new and varied family in the commune. The seal of their union is a football game in the snow, where everyone plays to heal their wounds.
These films use football not just as a backdrop or a thematic element but as a symbol of unity, joy, and, sometimes, a respite from the harsh realities of life. Through these cinematic narratives, football is elevated from a mere game to a powerful vehicle for exploring deeper themes of community, family, and the pursuit of happiness amidst adversity.
In the Argentine filmography, there is the movie “Pelota de trapo” (1948), directed by Leopoldo Torres Ríos. It tells the story of children from a working-class neighborhood who form the Sacachispas football team. Among them is Comeuñas, who grows up to become a star in the national league. However, he soon learns that his days in professional football are numbered due to a heart condition. This film reflects the lives of many children from Latin American neighborhoods who grow up playing football in every available space, dreaming of becoming great footballers. “Pelota de trapo” is a poignant exploration of dreams, aspirations, and the harsh realities often accompanying pursuing such dreams, embodying the hopes and struggles of young talents in the region.
Garrincha cannot be forgotten among the legendary heroes of Brazilian football. Director Joaquim Pedro paid tribute to him in the documentary “Garrincha, Alegria do Povo” (1962), where Garrincha’s magical feints, dribbles, and runs are showcased in black and white. The film captures how he would confound his opponents with his right leg, six centimeters longer than the left, and both legs bent outward. The documentary highlights why, for the people, there was no one like him for deceiving opponents, and in his fast and unexpected dribbles, he personified cinematic joy; the joy of movement turned into sly poetry.
This documentary celebrates Garrincha’s extraordinary skills on the pitch and delves into his impact on Brazilian culture and football. Known as “the joy of the people,” Garrincha brought a unique blend of skill, playfulness, and artistry to the game, enchanting fans and transforming football into a form of expressive art. His legacy is a testament to the power of football to inspire and captivate, making him an enduring symbol of the sport’s beauty and joy.
In “cinematic football,” memorable matches, such as Colombia’s game against Germany in the 1990 World Cup in Italy, ended in a 1-1 draw. The Colombian team taught a lesson in football crafted from defense, with inspired midfielders and forwards who nearly overcame the German pragmatism. Another iconic game was Brazil versus Italy in the 1982 World Cup in Spain, where the most poetic team in the championship lost against the formidable defensive barrier of the Italian scheme. This match saw the Italian striker Rossi capitalize on every defensive error while the Italian goalkeeper consistently thwarted Brazilian opportunities. In that Brazilian squad was the midfielder Sócrates, who was as daring as his namesake, the classical Greek philosopher. Sócrates championed social justice, opposition to the dictatorship, and socialism that would lead to a more balanced world without the extreme social differences and poverty prevalent in Brazilian society.
He staunchly opposed the dictatorship of João Baptista Figueiredo, creating the “Democracia Corinthiana” at Corinthians (in ’82 and ’83), where team decisions were made by everyone through equal votes, from the kit man to the top executives, covering training schedules, signings, line-ups, and the use of free time. On the field, Sócrates moved like an eagle, observing from a height (he was 1.93 meters tall), determining passes with precision and boldness, and engaging in off-script play combinations.
Sócrates famously said, “You can win or lose, but always with democracy,” “You shouldn’t play to win but so that you’re not forgotten,” and “Footballers are artists, and as such, we are the only ones who have more power than our bosses.”
These examples, among many others, highlight how playing and perceiving football, with all the grace of its movements, gives it a cinematic characteristic. We fill the gaps with our memory and imagination, embracing life with every pass, cross, or shot, allowing our thoughts to soar like Sócrates, the Greek and the Brazilian, towards moments of climax or ecstasy, akin to the spirit of Democracia Corinthiana.
