World Cup 2018 and Its Life Lessons

FIFA World Cup - Russia 2018

Since June everyone all over the world had been excitingly welcoming the World Cup 2018, after one of the world historic event - Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's visit and summit in Singapore had over. I had missed both important events (the summit and the world cup's opening ceremony) as I was still on holiday in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Throughout few decades of my life I had never shown any interest in football, ever!!! But since most of my Bhutanese young friends loved football so much (many had so much passion in it and played them very well - including what I had witnessed myself during my trip in Sri Lanka not long ago on how they would purposely travel to another city just to participate in a match, play it under the rain, etc.), plus my brother and nephews' great interest on some football teams, I had slowly been developing the interest towards football.

Final FA Cup 20 May 2018 - Chelsea VS Man United (Pic source: Google.com)

I watched my first football match with interest back on May 20th, 2018 - the FA Cup final Chelsea VS Manchester United - at my brother's house, when I stayed there over night. My brother supported Chelsea while my nephew supported Manchester United. I was waiting for my friend to reach my brother's house as she participated in running event that night. To be honest, I had zero knowledge of football. So many times I would comment unnecessarily which at the end, irritated my brother. Hahahahahaha..... :P

And now, this World Cup games.

It was very expensive to subscribe the football channel in Singapore, especially for this World Cup event. So we did not have an access to watch the games conveniently at home. During dinner meeting with friends, she told us her experience of searching the free streaming match and she ended up listening to other then English languages comments given by the commentator, i.e. Arabic, Thai, etc.

World Cup time!!! With Durian :P

However, sometimes, our local TV channel (Okto) broadcast the match (not regularly though), and I watched my first match on Sunday, 24th June, England VS Panama. I still had no knowledge about football so someone suggested me to just see if the player made goals or not. Hahahaha.... And instead of having beer while watching, I had durian (if you had durian, no alcohol was allowed to be consumed). And from that match, I knew few players such as: Harry Kane (the 25 years old English's footballer who made 3 goals on that match), Jesse Lingard (Manchester United player ), and John Stones (Manchester City player who made 2 goals).

Then followed with Japan VS Senegal match. I watched it on streaming online this time since it was not broadcast in local TV. Thanks to someone for giving me the link so that I could watch it on my laptop at home :) From this match, I also learned to know few good Japanese players like Takashi Inui, Keisuke Honda, cool-looking Maya Yoshida, and Shinji Kagawa. Although the result was draw 2-2, they managed to go on the next match.

So, from that day onward, I tried to watch one match per day (due to the time difference I could not wait and watch the 2 am game here). Sometimes hubby taught me some rules on the game too, which increased my knowledge a little. Many times I asked around what people thought about the result of the upcoming game like which team would win, how many scores they would make, and so on.

Friends were helping up in broaden my knowledge too by saying who were good from the team, and associated the country with its good players, e.g. Argentina - Messi, Portugal - Ronaldo, Brazil - Neymar, French - Griezzman, etc. Hehehehe... :D From Facebook post I also knew some of the good-heart players, e.g. Messi,

Some matches were good, in the sense you could see how strong the team, e.g. on Korea match against Germany. The Korea defenders were defending very well and the goalkeeper did his job very well on the match too. There you could also see how weak the Germany striker. They had so many opportunities to make a goal but they could not use it well. Some games were too much of fighting, bringing the players down, injuring players neck, head, legs, and so on, and not worth watching.

Many games were unpredictable. Those who people thought supposed to win, they lost, and who supposed to be weak, they won, even after the 90 minutes game had over (Korea VS Germany match).

I learned new things on every match as I was really having 0 knowledge on it. Just like yesterday's match - Russia VS Spain. In this match, when the result was draw, they were given 30 minutes to play and see which team could score a goal and win. In the event they both did not score any goal, both teams would do penalty kick - 5 kicks were given and those scored the most would win).

World Cup's betting (Pic source: Singaporepools.com.sg)

Apart from it, I also learned about the betting system from Singapore Pools. Hahahaha.... I haven't put my money on any bet so far, but usually the World Cup event was the only event most Singaporean would put their money and bet on it. Like from the above figure, I had to ask my brother what was the figures showing. There were many bet type available too, e.g. Pick the score, total goals, halftime, halftime-fulltime, etc. P.S. I do not encourage you to bet, to be interesting in betting, and other kind of betting interest by posting about it here. I just wanted to share what I learned from this World Cup event.

World Cup 2018 - Round 16 Chart (Pic source: CBS Sports)

So we are now at the Round 16 match. Many good teams have been taken out like Portugal, Argentina, and Spain. Will more good teams be out from this World Cup??? Hopefully not. And which team you predict to be World Cup champion this time round?? Many of my friends hope that Brazil and England would be one of the champions. But with so many went out so far, it would be hard to predict right??

That how the World Cup lessons apply to our lives journey. So many things are unpredictable. No matter how good the team or the person is, sometimes luck (or fate, or karma) is still playing parts, which makes everyone undergoes ups and downs in life. No one experiences only the good things or only the bad things in life. It is all mixing up like roller-coaster ride.

Life lessons from World Cup (Pic source: Pinterest.com)

Some of the important lessons are how we can accept all the situation bravely and wisely? How we can learn from the things in the past so that we can have a better journey towards our future? How can we accept failure in life? How can we get up from it and move on? How can we live our dreams?

We face praise and disappointment. We face so much pressure from society. If we are good, they expect us to perform good all the time, or even better performance. If we are not good, they may despise and look down on us. While at the end, it is our own life and we are in control of it. What type of life we prefer may differ from what society expects us for having. Can we strive and get hold on it?

You may not think much as I mentioned here when it comes to World Cup, but these thoughts just appear as I write. Hope that we can have enough strength to choose the life we want to live, and not living life from other's expectation. Be you, be yourself. Be me, be myself, no matter what.