Commentary on The FIFA World Cup: A legacy tournament, but still a fan favourite? by CONIFA: The hidden movement of football

The World Cup is no longer what Jules Rimet envisioned: an image of peace and solidarity. In the bloated club ecosystem, international tournaments have also lost importance. For fans, however, it's still a big party.

Illustration: Dipta of Charbak

"Sometimes football is a joy that hurts, and the music played to celebrate a victory that would make the dead dance sounds very close to the noisy silence of the empty stadium, where night has fallen, and one of the vanquished still sits, unable to move, alone in the vast sea of ​​steps.–Eduardo Galeano

Everyone remembers their firsts. The memory of my first contact with football is tangled with monsoon water up to my shins, a soaked school uniform that I refused to take off until half-time because I didn't want to miss a single minute, and the thrill that went through me when a young wizard with gaped teeth and curly hair kicked a ball towards the goal that followed the laws of physics until he didn't, changing suddenly heading and diving over the goalkeeper's head and into the net. Even as Ronaldinho Gaucho walked away, a big smile plastered on his face, and was instantly enveloped by ecstatic teammates, I felt time slow down, felt inexplicably grounded in place but simultaneously energized.

A week later, on the big screen in a hotel near the airport, my sister and I joined in the celebrations with our father and uncle, as Brazil somewhat recovered from its 1998 debacle. And then, like that, it was over, and I felt hopelessly deprived of something I had only known for seven days. If I could turn back time, I would tell 12-year-old Anu that there would be many such things over the next sixteen years. That same mix of stubbornness and discouragement; the indelible magical moments and the sharp memories of pain that you only get used to over time.

And yet, as I approach a fifth World Cup this summer, I wonder if the tournament means the same to me as it did then. Or if Arsenal steal my time, my love and my loyalty, that I have nothing left to give to a tournament that is defined by patriotism in a way that club or league football is not and so I still feel a bit on the outside.

But what about the tournament itself? Has he changed? Is it fair to expect it to stay the same? To do this, you will have to turn the pages before moving them forward, at triple speed, to arrive at the present moment.

Once upon a time there was a small town Frenchman with a big dream

If you search for Theuley-les-Lavancourt on Google, the only English search result is a Wikipedia page with one line - "Theuley is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourogne-Franche- County in eastern France.”

The information box on the far right helpfully informs us that the area of ​​the township is only 2.90 square miles and that in 2006 its population was 71, or about 25 per square mile ....