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Fátima Lima (she/her/hers) Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

I’m a sports enthusiast! When the weekend approaches, the first thing that crosses my mind is always finding details regarding my football team’s agenda. What time is the Formula One race on Sunday? And from there, I start drawing up my weekend schedule. And it has been like that since my childhood. I grew up in Brazil, where football is enormous. It is a big chunk of our culture. People love and hate each other around a game field; it is all about who wins today’s game or the championship. Still, even though I appreciate sports, I have never understood the concept of winning becoming your only goal. 

Clichés fill my mind whenever I speak meaningfully about the things I love, but that sentiment is especially tricky in football. The game’s beautiful art seems to mock my purest intention to describe its beauty, and that is the tricky part: watching a game is so entertaining that winning could not be the only reason to enjoy it! I will never understand Brazil’s national team’s elimination back in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, which is the pinnacle of this sport. The team, a squad full of great players, enchanted and stopped the whole world, always in an offensive and engaging way. The individual talents were in great shape, and their harmony was remarkable. First-rate passes, back-heels, beautiful goals in well-crafted plays and plenty of class even in stealing the ball — that’s how the 1982 team played. Still, Brazil lost to Italy, and all the merits must be given to the winners, but the real thing is that everyone who enjoys this sport only remembers Brazil’s mesmerizing performance. I guess, thinking empathetically, Italy must have felt ecstatic about winning that one. 

The world of football, I believe, is not just made up of big leagues, millionaire salaries, glamour and fame. It is, above all, composed of stories, curiosities and historical facts that show how the game, many times, is just a detail. The art of taking the ball away from the attacker without committing a foul, the dribble that leaves the defender on the ground, and the spectacular saves of the goalkeepers are inexplicable sensations. The game is played on the streets of big cities, in housing estates and slums, in refugee camps, in small villages and remote regions. There is always a small kid wearing a football jersey! A team can represent a homeland, show people’s suffering, explain a war with different eyes, translate the crowd’s anger, exemplify passions and gather people around a very inexpensive item, a ball. I get back to thinking that maybe winning is not the only ecstasy.

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My name is Fátima Lima, and writing is my therapy. I believe art makes us better people, providing many ways to reflect on today’s world, the past and the future. I live in New Brunswick, Canada, and I work in a multicultural settlement agency. The best thing about collaborating with Low Entropy is the freedom to write about subjects I love in the way I write.