The obsession with sport is bad enough, but even fiercer passions are aroused in young countries where games playing and nationalism are both recent developments.

(…)

As soon as strong feelings of rivalry are aroused, the notion of playing the game according to the rules always vanishes. People want to see one side on top and the other side humiliated, and they forget that victory gained through cheating or through the intervention of the crowd is meaningless. Even when the spectators don’t intervene physically they try to influence the game by cheering their own side and “rattling” opposing players with boos and insults. Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

– George Orwell, The Sporting Spirit
(via Guerra Eterna)

*** Relacionado: Los valores del deporte y el orgullo nacional. Si es que el deporte de élite (porque el deporte puede ser pasivo, puede limitarse a verlo por la tele en tercera persona) es lo que tiene.

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Algo bueno debía salir del partido del domingo: fueron esas fotos de las que hablábamos el otro día. En La Información podemos ver algunas fotos de varias ciudades difernetes y en Halón disparado tienen un fantástico fotorreportaje de Ávila fantasma.