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There are times when the final minutes of a game are important

Francisco Miraval

I must confess that I recently made some wrong decisions when watching soccer games. I do not know if I am getting old and therefore intolerant to all kinds of uncertainty, or if I lack now the passion I once had for soccer. I perhaps I was simply wrong.

For example, I was recently watching Boca Juniors, my favorite team, playing a game for the Argentinean tournament with substitutes. Boca was losing 2-1 and it was already injury time. Therefore, I assumed Boca’s defeat was unavoidable and I turned the TV off. Later, I discovered that Boca scored with an incredible play at the very last minute of the game and tied.

Another example: Barcelona was playing its last game of the Spanish League for the 2011-2012 tournament and, once again, it was losing 2-1 when the game was almost over. I decided it made more sense to do something else and I turned the TV off. Therefore, I never saw the header that gave Barcelona a tie during injury time.

But the real “tragedy” happened last Sunday morning when I decided to watch Manchester City playing the final game of the Premier League. I watch the City because several Argentineans play there. The City needed a win to become the champions for the first time since 1968.

The City needed a win, but, at the end of the game and with only just four minutes of injury time to be played, the City was losing 2-1. It was clear that the City players were nervous and tired and, in my opinion, their defeat was unavoidable.

So, once again, I decided to turn the TV off and, as a consequence, I never saw live the City scoring two late goals in less than three minutes to win the game and the championship.

I know that talking about soccer is a trivial matter because there are more important things in life than soccer (just a few more important things, by the way.) I would like to know why I got used to accept defeat and to stop watching a game until the game was actually over and the final score was not going to change.

Perhaps I am assuming the final minutes of a game are unimportant. Perhaps I think defeat is always unavoidable. Perhaps I do not like to see my favorite team losing and, therefore, it is better to turn the TV off. (“Out of sight, out mind,” the saying goes.)

Or perhaps I cannot tolerate the hyper-commercialization of soccer games and the mediocre quality of many play-by-play announcers.

Whatever the case, I made wrong decisions about watching the final minutes of some soccer games. I was sure defeat was unavoidable, but there was no defeat at the end.

Am I transferring the same pessimistic attitude to other areas of my life? Just in case, I decided to re-read the work of Argentinean poet Almafuerte, who, in ¡Piu Avanti! says, “Do not feel defeated, not even after being defeated.”

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