A Love Affair, A Sports Fan and the Science Behind Why We FEEL the World Cup
I stumbled into the 2018 World Cup quite by accident.
Though I never much developed the spectator habit, I have been playing football for nearly 40 years now. Even though I’m an American and a woman.
A Love Affair
In the case of sports, there is compelling evidence that this is basically a real relationship in your brain. In a very real sense, the sports team becomes a part of you.
— Eric Simons in “The Science of Being A Sports Fan” by Megan Gambino
Well, it’s not the first love affair to start with one person pretty sure it’s a bad idea. But my first coach, Istvan, had his instincts honed as a fighter with the Hungarian Resistance in the 1950’s. He knew people.
He took me down to the basement weight room of our Student Activities Office, threw a couple dozen balls at me as hard and fast as he could. When my survival instincts kicked and I didn’t get hurt, I was declared the new goalie of the women’s football team-a sport I knew nothing about let alone having ever played.
BUT…I loved football. I played for him for four years. Our program was so small we played in a city league, not on a college circuit. We trained with the men’s team so we could field two teams for most practices-to the great advantage of our women’s team.
The goal box brought out a part of me I didn’t know existed. I was dreaded, hated even; at times, by men and women alike. Once during a summer co-ed league, one of the city’s greatest strikers didn’t think a woman belonged in the goal box. Truth is, he was uncomfortable playing his full-on game against “a girl”. Since he hadn’t been able to get me out of his way, he started to play a little rough. I blocked most his shots on goal, and he couldn’t score. Frustrated, he resorted to gunning for me: full force, at the face, from close range to terrorize me out of there. He got a yellow card (a warning). That didn’t stop either of us. Finally, I got hit so hard in the head I lost consciousness for a moment and collapsed onto the field. When I came to, he was being red carded (thrown out of the game).
We won. He never scored on me-ever.
And I LOVED it.
For the epitome of the “good girl, pleaser”, it was the unconstrained freedom of exquisite, authentic performance art: the right to resist, obstruct, refuse and thereby, prevail.
The goal box can be lonely, but suddenly, it’s all full-on to hold off a studied attack. In seconds it becomes now, now, now; all “present moment” in that body kind of way that a great football match demands.
I LOVED IT!!!
For a while, it was my primary relationship.
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The Birth of Fan
[Elite athletes] have a feeling of being at one with their bodies, or experience a unity of mind, body, movement, situation, environment. -Gunnar Breivik Researcher (1)
I have never been afraid of big moments. I get butterflies. I get nervous and anxious, but I think those are all good signs I am ready for the moment. -Steve Curry Golden State Warriors
Fast forward 40 years of city leagues, pick up games, or just hanging with kids and footballs. I am sitting in a friend’s living room in Delhi, India.
Japan vs. Senegal World Cup 2018 is playing away on an unwatched TV, which I just happen to sit down in front of…
The fever wasn’t instant. It’s slow, a seduction. But an experienced dancer knows the moves; and the dangers.
The Japanese had that spirit. They’re slight, fast, team-playing ball handlers. The game was a draw, but before it was over my guys friends were all sitting watching with me, because I was captivated by the Japanese style of play. “Look, look…did you see that?”
I watched Japan. Then I watched Brazil, in spite of all of Neymar’s antics (NOT because of them); I watched Uruguay; I missed Argentina; I watched CROATIA!
LUKA!
I am remembering Eric Ebert and Mark Borrows running play drills against me as I watch Luka drop that ball at his player’s feet: the perfect set up.
GOAL!!! YES!! Fist raised in the air!
What? Fist raised in the air? What?!
I am remembering Istvan; and Jess trying to kill me as I watch Subasic, Pickford, Akinfeev taking over-time penalty kicks. I know what you’ve done, Guys. I KNOW!!! Even as everyone, including me, is watching Luka, there is NO CROATIA without Subasic (added note: as painfully evidenced by today’s final).
And it’s all about that presence. That silent mental state of awareness where you are one with everything and everyone around you, especially the ball; so you can move in an instant, and make it count….
I enjoy watching these guys so much, I actually feel the game in my body. I am thinking with a wonder “I might as well be playing”. I am feeling keyed up: stomach getting tight, and the butterflies; pulse and heart rate going up…
I have been meditating daily for the last 30 years. I don’t even feel my own life in my body like this any more. How is this happening? WHAT is this?!!
And then I noticed, it’s not just me. The fans? They’re so engaged. I am watching the replays of the coaches. They’re like parents watching their babies’ early steps; they’re living the follow-through of their strikers, feeling that ball find or fail the goal.
What is going on here? What is this phenomenon I am witnessing? Witnessing? Heck, I am forcibly submerged in it!!
Hardwired for Connection-the Science
The spectating brain is also a playing brain when it comes to sports. When we’re watching sports, it feels as if we’re actually playing in the game.
— Lizette Borreli (2)
Well, Sports Fans, it turns out humans are hardwired to feel that connectedness to the actions of those we are watching. In monkeys, the science has shown it down to a specific individual neuron. In humans, we are certain down to 3 sq millimeter regions consisting of millions of neurons. But basically, when you are watching a player move, your body is having similar sympathetic neuronal firings. It’s identifying, at the very least, similar activity and feeling it.
Further, this has been researched with professional athletes, professional observers like say journalists, and regular spectators. With free-throws, the more physically trained the person is (the pros), the more able they are to predict outcomes of another player’s performance. In images stopped at various points in a recorded free throw shot, the professional ball players were much better able to successfully predict the outcome of the shot from any point in the recording. It indicates we are connected on some level through observation; and we are wired to understand action, more and less specifically, depending on our level of familiarity; our brains equate it with the same, or similar, physical movements in our own bodies. That is a basketball player’s brain knows it by his own free-throws, and a spectator’s brain might recognize it as similar to tossing something onto the top shelf his closet.
But there’s more…
Watching sports also engages the parts of our brains we use to communicate and understand the unique vocabulary of a game: for example “off sides” in football, or “a wicket” in cricket. The same brain regions are used in planning, organizing and strategy; and watching sports actually makes you exercise these parts of your brain.
And last but not least, watching a sports event increases the flow of testosterone in everyone, men and women alike (though it seems some scientists are at odds on this point regarding women). Additionally, testosterone increases lead to a sense of dominance in the victorious. For the winners, feel good hormones, (dopamine, serotonin), tend to increase. Ever wondered why cities with victorious sports teams often have celebrations that spin wildly out of control? Scientists suspect it’s that rising testosterone gone astray: the line between valor and violence is thin.
We have all witnessed the heartbreak of the losing players too. Grown men prostrate on the pitch, as if buried alive was preferable to facing this moment. Fans? Utterly dejected. Testosterone dissipates in defeat. This sudden drop is a downer. But it’s met with a sudden increase in the anti-stress hormone cortisol, which actually helps us to avoid feelings of depression or anxiety. Those players do eventually get up; I’m guessing once that cortisol takes over. But don’t quote me to a scientist.
Additionally, psychological indicators suggest being a sports fan contributes to feelings of well being because of the sense of community, particularly in victory. Yet, even in defeat, hope arises in the possibility of our communal future: the “NEXT TIME!!!”
One downside however is heart failure. Literally. Episodes of heart incidence increase significantly around the times of large sporting events. Doctors speculate it is due to an inability of sports fans to endure the stress of the game.
Overall, being a sports fan shows definite, predictable, mostly positive impacts on the body and the mind. So much so, we may feel we are in the game.
Is ALL altruism just biology?
“Soccer isn’t the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community’s fabric, a repository of traditions.”
― Franklin Foer, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
Science lesson over, I was amused by all the speculation that:
“The World Cup brings the world together because football is the World’s Game”;
gives rise to a World made equal by the fairly assigned opportunity to play;
It bonds people in communities around their national teams. (3)
These are elevated convictions of the human mind; so charming; and engaging; and part of what makes us humans so interesting.
BUT ACTUALLY?
Many of us are psycho-biologically inclined to experience our sports events with that communal sense of well-being. We are wired that way.
Worse, in my case it boils down to: my neural pathways are HEAVILY conditioned by long years of exposure. Once I settled in front of that fateful Japan vs. Senegal match, and day by day, allowed myself to catch a few minutes, a few periods, a few games and then, all of the Quarters, and the SEMIS…
There was little chance I could escape THE FINAL.
That BUZZ? It’s a real biochemical response to exposure. And while it might be better to win for my overall experience, losing is also naturally compensated to keep me from deep depression. I’ll be okay. I can move on (though we might find it very difficult to drop even a “losing” team). In most cases, it does NOT equate with any addicted state of body or mind.
Why do I know Luka is holding the whole space together; or that Subasic, Lovren, and Vida have got that goal box covered, or the outside game is on and working flawlessly, or not? My long exposure may well make me better able, at various points in the process, to predict the outcome of events.
I knew, and called the Croatia/England game winner about 5 minutes after England’s goal. No one, even the science was ready to back me on that. But I was right. It doesn’t always make me a popular fan. So for the Finals, I guess we’ll watch that at game time. (added note: I knew this one too, and called it before half time for France-Hats off Les Bleus!).
BUT, anyway, next time, if someone complains about my sports watching, I am just going to tell them: “Hey, I am getting my work out!”
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1) (2013) Zombie-Like or Superconscious? A Phenomenological and Conceptual Analysis of Consciousness in Elite Sport, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 40:1, 85–106, DOI: 10.1080/00948705.2012.725890
2) Sports Fan Science: How Watching Sports Games Affects The Mind And Body — Lizette Borreli Medical Daily June 2016
3) https://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/world-cup-2014/2014-fifa-world-cup-brazil-2/
