Solidarity in Stockholm: That is all that matters after Manchester's darkest hour
:focal(147x151:149x149)/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2015/03/26/1443759-30872147-310-310.jpg)
Updated 24/05/2017 at 08:30 GMT
The Manchester attack renders the result of the Europa League final insignificant, what matters now is what football stands for. Marcus Foley reports from Stockholm.
Ajax team stand for a minute of silence honouring the people killed and wounded in an explosion at Manchester Arena.
Image credit: Eurosport
Football, at its most base level, is a vehicle of escape. For an hour and a half, or perhaps longer, the beautiful game has transformative powers. Its cathartic essence feeds its very soul.
But that piercing popularity – the world game is played by over 250 million people in 200 hundred countries – lends itself to a skewed sense of importance. It is a simple sport that is over-analysed and over-thought. There is microscopic attention attached to the most insignificant of details.
As we have learned over the past 48 hours, life has a brutal way of ultimately reminding us of the insignificance of things we like to do to brighten up our existence.
In essence, it does not really matter what happens on the pitch – it genuinely does not. Football is after all a complete waste of time, an irrelevant pastime.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/24/2090085-43796910-2560-1440.jpg)
The Europa League trophy in Stockholm.
Image credit: Eurosport
What does matter is what it represents, and how it can be a force for good amid so much pain, misery and desolation. It may sound cliched, but this Europa League final presents itself with a chance to stand for more than just football. The show must go on at the Friends Arena at a time when we should all be reaching out to our friends. Unlike football, we all live on a knife edge as the Manchester attack illustrates most explicitly.
Solidarity in Stockholm is the message football as a force for good should send to the wider world. No sport brings people together better than football because no other sport carries such global appeal.
The result of Wednesday’s Europa League final; what that means for the landscape of European football; whether Jose Mourinho is a spent force; whether Ajax are back at the top table of the continental game matters not one little bit.
As Ajax manager Peter Bosz pointed out in his pre-match press conference, the atrocity that befell Manchester could have happened anywhere. His words were poignant regarding the singer Ariana Grande, a "broken" woman who has cancelled her world tour only days after appearing in Amsterdam.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/18/2085907-43713350-2560-1440.jpg)
Peter Bosz's Ajax will play Manchester United in the Europa League final
Image credit: PA Sport
"Of course, we have spoken about what happened,” said the former Maccabi Tel Aviv manager.
About 10 days ago, Ariana Grande was in Amsterdam. The wives of the players went with their children. It’s something that really touches us. If it happens in Manchester, it can happen anywhere.
It can happen anywhere, which means we face it together. What is intended to divide us often actually brings us closer together.
Manchester United’s heritage and prestige is intrinsically linked to the city, and their excellence as a club has helped expedite the city’s rise as metropolitan, cosmopolitan city. There are players in the current squad who have called Manchester home their whole lives, and there are those who have adopted - and been adopted by - Manchester.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/23/2089899-43793190-2560-1440.jpg)
Eric Cantona: I suffer with you, my heart is with you Manchester
One of the City’s adopted sons, Eric Cantona, offered an eloquent insight and appropriate reflection of the prevailing mood.
I feel deeply, to the victims, to the wounded persons, kids, teenagers, adults, to their families, to their friends, to all, all of you, all of us. I think to this city, Manchester and Mancunians that I love deeply. I think to this country, England and the English that I love deeply, I suffer with you. My heart is always with you. I always feel close to you.
It is difficult to say to what extent Monday’s attack will affect each player individually, but make no mistake about it, it will have affected them. It affects us all. It is difficult to focus on football after what went on in Manchester.
As a player, it must be doubly hard to attach any relevance to the night, but focus they must against the backdrop of such horrors and suffering back home. United began their last training session before the final with a minute’s silence at Carrington.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/23/2089786-43790930-2560-1440.jpg)
Manchester United
Image credit: Getty Images
Perhaps the decision to cancel Mourinho’s pre-match press conference was an attempt to insulate the team from the slight potential of invasive questioning. Emotions were still pretty raw if the sombre nature of United’s pre-match walk around the Friends Arena was anything to go by. There was a hushed silence; it felt like there was appreciation ahead of a European final but a palpable, and completely understandable, lack of excitement.
Who really cares about tactics and systems when so many families are coping with the pain of human loss in such a proud city's darkest hour.
Mourinho articulated the feeling in and around the squad in a statement released before they flew out to Stockholm.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/24/2090112-43797450-2560-1440.jpg)
A message in Manchester.
Image credit: Eurosport
"We are all very sad about the tragic events last night. And we can't take out of our minds and hearts the victims and their families,” he began.
There was defiance in the statement too before finishing with a nod to solidarity.
We have a job to do & will fly to Sweden to do that job. It's a pity we cannot fly with the happiness we always have before a big game. I know, even during my short time here, that the people of Manchester will pull together as one.
Understandably, this place has lacked the usual boisterousness associated with migration of two opposing sets of fans to a neutral city for a European final, and UEFA have quite rightly decided to hold a minute’s silence before the match. It has also toned down the pre-match ceremony.
It feels like an event to get through rather than one to savour with many aware that cancelling the event would also send out the wrong message.
This final will understandably be a low-key affair, but football remains a fine vehicle to demonstrate cultural solidarity in the face of those who seek destroy it. The result no longer matters.
Solidarity does.
Marcus Foley at the Friends Arena on Twitter at @mmjfoley
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement