The Serious Game: Football, Joy, and Professional Obligations (Patreon)

Ángel Cappa: Let's talk about football as a game. And, by the way, I find it timely to mention a phrase I read somewhere: "There is nothing more serious than the game." I say this because when we talk about football and define it as a game, some think that we are forgetting that it is a professional and competitive endeavour, where there are obligations.

César Luis Menotti: Yes, it's as if someone said that in football everyone does whatever they want. And that's not the case, obviously. Although football is joy, it carries obligations, there is a team, a competition. I want to insist on the theme of joy. Because there is no other way not just to play football, but to live, other than for joy. There is nothing more desolate than seeing someone working on something they do not like and, moreover—as it really happens—without participating in its benefits. That's why we see workers arriving at the factories in a bad mood.

A football player must understand this, which is fundamental for his life: why he plays and for whom he plays. That is what he should ask himself and answer.

It's not about saying I play for free or I charge less. That's impossible within the rules of the game, because society does not guarantee anything to anyone, and not to him either. But he should also not lose sight of those questions because in the answers he finds there will be a choice of life.