Times have been extraordinarily hard and we all have different ways of coping. For the last couple of months, sports had been one of the redeeming arcs in the ordinariness of my life inside lockdown-not-lockdown. My favourite out of recent sporting events was the European Championship. Partly because it was on for a month, enough time to fill the banal days of phase 2 but mainly because I almost won the office pool had it not for England losing in the penalty shootout. The margins were narrow, both in the match between England and Italy, and my ranking in the pool. I finished 4th out of 44. The prize money was hardly life-changing but I get to keep some bragging rights until perhaps next year’s World Cup. Much of the credit goes to H* for helping me with my draw I have to confess.
Football isn’t something I follow religiously. The offside rule will always be baffling to me. But Euro and World Cup are football’s equivalent of Miss Universe. Put that way, my interest is piqued. The matches were broadcast at odd hours in Asia hence many weekends were spent watching games until five in the morning, six if they went the distance. One of the most notable moments from the tournament and one that made shockwaves all over the world was when Christian Eriksen, a Danish star player, dropped dead in the middle of the pitch. What was an otherwise boring match against Finland suddenly took a dark turn. The TV networks didn’t have the presence of mind, or maybe even decency, to cut off broadcast so thousands in the stadium and millions around the world bore witness to a man lying motionless and at his most vulnerable state being desperately brought back to life. In a touching array of solidarity and kindness, the entire Denmark team formed a circle around Eriksen to shield him from the prying cameras. He pulled through in the end but it was traumatising. It left many distraught. The following day I looked up where to get trained in CPR. Red Cross routinely gives courses on it.
England was my pick to win the tournament. They weren’t the favourites, not many really expected them to come out of half a century long hiatus. But H had a really good feeling about them and they had home advantage with most of their games played at Wembley. Over the course of the tournament, I’ve come to admire the team not only for their skill on the pitch but for their principled approach to matters off of it. The team took the knee before every kickoff in a bold display of intolerance for racism and racial abuse and team captain Harry Kane wore a rainbow band to celebrate Pride. In contrast, some English fans didn’t exactly get the memo and were shown to act dishonorably. Perhaps they were the reason England didn’t win. They needed humbling down. It’s interesting to see how football can both be unifying and divisive.
Meanwhile on Twitter, the pundits were trying to one up each other with their predictions but the common man busied themselves with the best meme. I came for the latter. The ones that drew a chuckle out of me are the following.
Roland Garros and Wimbledon both started before and during the Euro one after the other respectively. The men’s draw was lacking variety, the women’s was all over the place as usual but at least the latter was more exciting for its unpredictability. Men’s tennis is still dominated by the big three even when they’re well into their 30s but Djokovic may be the only one in top form so he’ll likely continue to edge over Fed and Rafa whose clay prowess now hangs in the balance. Djokovic won both slams matching the two’s record of grand slam wins at 20 apiece. Talk about domination.
On a surprising move, Naomi Osaka decided not to participate in mandatory media interviews because of the toll it takes on her mental health. Grand Slam organizers issued a strongly worded statement warning her of potential suspensions. She answered by withdrawing from the slams altogether leaving the women’s draw slightly skewed. I support Osaka’s stand. Players should just let their talent on the court speak for themselves. The press, on numerous occasions, have done more harm than good. Osaka’s poetic justice came at the other night’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics Opening Ceremony when she carried the final torch to light the Olympic flame.
On that note, my friends and I would have been in Tokyo right at this moment witnessing the games live. Instead, we have regressed. What little glimmer of hope for a return to normalcy had been squashed. For an unfortunate and perhaps totally avoidable reason, cases have spiked sharply in Singapore. The culprit? KTV bars operating illegally. But we all knew what that meant. Ibang nota naman talaga ang kinanta! Anyhow, sharp rise in cases meant drastic reaction from the government, ergo stricter restrictions. Another month of no dining in and allowed social gathering of only up to two people. It’s not getting any better around the world either so here’s counting on the games to tide us through.
*not a fictional character
hi, saw you are a member of UPAAHK and wanted to update our members alumni list. Are you still a UP alumni based in HK? Thanks