The football starts tonight. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.<\/p>\n
Personally, I was under the impression that football tournaments began when a referee blew a whistle and twenty-two players started chasing a ball around a field. Apparently, I was mistaken.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, before a single pass can be misplaced or a single commentator can tell us that “both teams will be looking for a positive result,” we must first endure an opening ceremony.<\/p>\n
When did this happen?<\/p>\n
I switched on the television expecting football and was greeted instead by dancers, fireworks, lasers, giant inflatable objects and enough dramatic music to accompany the end of civilisation.<\/p>\n
Now don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a bit of spectacle. But football already has a perfectly good opening ceremony. It’s called the teams walking onto the pitch.<\/p>\n
That’s it.<\/p>\n
The crowd cheers. The national anthems are played. The referee checks everyone’s boots. Job done.<\/p>\n
Instead, modern tournaments seem determined to convince us that football is somehow not exciting enough on its own.<\/p>\n
Apparently we need a singer suspended from a crane, a hundred dancers dressed as footballs, and a light show visible from space before we’re ready for a match.<\/p>\n
And why is everything so loud?<\/p>\n
Every opening ceremony sounds as though somebody has accidentally connected the stadium speakers directly to a thunderstorm.<\/p>\n
The presenters don’t help either.<\/p>\n
“This is a historic moment,” they announce.<\/p>\n
No, the historic moment will be when somebody scores the first goal. What we’re currently watching is a man in a sequinned jacket shouting into a microphone.<\/p>\n
The best part is that everyone pretends to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
The players look confused.<\/p>\n
The managers look impatient.<\/p>\n
Half the crowd are still trying to find their seats.<\/p>\n
And the rest of us are sitting at home wondering whether we’ve accidentally tuned into a music festival.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I’m old-fashioned.<\/p>\n
Perhaps football has moved on.<\/p>\n
But I can’t help thinking that the greatest football tournaments in history managed perfectly well without giant fireworks displays and interpretive dance routines.<\/p>\n
Still, the good news is that eventually somebody remembers there’s a football match to be played.<\/p>\n
And that, after all, is why we’re here.<\/p>\n
Anyway, what do I know?<\/p>\n
I’m just a Grumpy Old Man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why Does Every Football Tournament Need an Opening Ceremony? The football starts tonight. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. Personally, I was under the impression that football tournaments began when a referee blew a whistle and twenty-two players started chasing a ball around a field. Apparently, I was mistaken. Nowadays, before a single […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,84,82,83],"tags":[91,89,86,92,79,88,87,90,93,85],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-grumpy-old-man","category-humour","category-opinion","category-soccer","category-world-cup","tag-british-humour","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-football-culture","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-opening-ceremony","tag-soccer","tag-sports-commentary","tag-tournament","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1101,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/1101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}