It's Even Worse When the Commentator Starts Snickering In Pity

There is a feeling of discomfort that comes over me from time to time. It’s a cruel mixture of unjustified pride or justified shame and powerless acceptance. It’s what I imagine a mother bird feels when one of her young strides towards the edge of the nest and makes the leap.

I don’t consider myself for one second to be an authority on football. Others occasionally do, which scares me enormously. At times like that I am forced to acknowledge that my the insight others think I might have is not caused by a record of dead-on predictions, but rather by an apparently public knowledge of just how dominant a part of my life football is. I say apparently public, because I try feverishly to hide this. Then my friends started quizzing me in the presence of their friends to convince them that they know this circus freak, this oracle of football. And while it turned out I did not know where Stormvogels Telstar, a modest Dutch second division team, hails from, it became apparent to me that:

A) Nobody knows exactly where Stormvogels Telstar hails from
and
B) I fail miserably when trying to play off how important football is to me.

A (great) Dutch comedian once said Jesus could have been off much, much worse. His crucifix could have been erected next to someone’s who can only talk about football at parties, or next to a Limburger. I am the latter. There is very little I can do about that. But I have made such an effort to avoid being the former. I try to bring up politics, arts, study, travel, anything. It’s exhausting.

But even when people wrongfully assume my views on anything hold more weight than theirs do, I try biblically to make as few predictions as possible. Predicting scores is right out, as is predicting league positions. There are, however, some unfortunate moments. I let my guard down for just a second, and an entire room of friends has clearly heard me proclaim that this or that player will be very good at some point in time.

However, like the baby bird, who, still half blind, has made it’s way towards the outermost point of it’s shelter, a prediction like this can go two ways.

At the very best, I feel moderately proud, which is far too small an upside. It’s difficult pretending you ‘called’ a player when in fact he’s already made it to at least the higher youth ranks of a professional club. In fact, there is little sense in thinking you’re alone (and – even more preposterous – first) in your hopes for a player. If you were, that player would obviously not be where he is when you first see him dart up and down a wing. But it is still nice to see a player you had high hopes for makes it into the public football conscience as a good player.

However, it can also backfire tremendously. Like the little bird’s hope for flight, which vanishes as rapidly as he plunges to the ground and his untimely demise, any credibility my friends may have attributed to me, in what can now only be regarded as a serious lapse in judgement, will disappear. It will bring about games of silent embarrassment. I will spent entire games hoping some fuck up won’t fuck up, but of course they always do. Gleeful looks will be gleefully cast over shoulders in my general direction, whenever yet another woeful pass is given. I was wrong.

Splat...