World Cup 2014 — The psychodynamics
Football or soccer has been, and is still, part of the Modern Olympic Games that take place every four years.
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Football became a contested game in 1900 – four years after the Olympic Games were revived in 1886.
A French man, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, is credited with the revival of the Olympic Games in modern time. He founded the International Olympic Committee, the governing body, in 1894.
Ancient Olympic Games started in Greece in 776 BC.
Many legends have been cited to explain the origins of the Greece Olympic Games.
One legend is that the gods organised the games to honour Zeus, king of the gods and humanity, after he had defeated Cronus, god of time, in the battle for the throne of the king of the gods.
According to another legend, Zeus decided to organise and supervise games for the gods, demigods and heroes to stop bloody and deadly combats among them.
A legend linked to Herakle or Hercules, son of Zeus, is that Herakle organised the first Olympic Games at Olympia to honour his father who helped him to defeat an opponent, Elis, in a war.
Greece continued to hold the Olympic Games for a long time to let the gods, demigods and heroes compete for honours.
In those ancient days, the gods and demigods, it is believed, sometimes came down from their spiritual abode to interact with human beings.
The heroes are said to be children born of demigods and human beings.
During the revived Modern Olympic Games, the gods and demigods no longer came down to compete on earth with other gods and demigods for honours.
It is better to leave why that happened to Olympic historians and metaphysicians.
The purpose of this article is to throw some light on how modern footballers bring their spiritual, mental, psychic/psychological and physical abilities to bear on the game of football at the World Cup in Brazil between June 12 and July 13, 2014.
The FIFA World Cup event is organised by the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) to enable 200 nations to participate and vie for the World Cup.
FIFA was founded in 1904, and it has been holding international football competitions among nations of the world.
The World Cup finals, in its present form and scope, began in 1930 with teams from 13 countries in Uruguay.
The FIFA World Cup has since gone through some changes and modifications.
At the Brazil World Cup 2014, 32 finalists from continents of the world competed in 32 days for the cup that was won by the German team on July 13.
Why did some nations, such as Portugal; Spain, the defending champions; Italy, former world champions; England, former world champions and Russia, all European teams, drop out very early?
Why did South American teams from Costa Rica, Colombia and Brazil, five times winners of the world cup, not win due to home support, climatic conditions and other advantages?
Why did Uruguay top player, Luis Suarez, bite Giorgio Chiellini in a group match with Italy?
Why did Ghana’s Black Stars not perform as well as, or better than, they did in the 2006 and 2010 World Cup finals in Germany and South Africa, respectively?
And why was Black Stars camp in disarray in Brazil?
Have metaphysics and psychology answers to the questions posed above?
The answer is: yes.
From Greek legends in which we learnt about the great Greece Olympic Games and the exploits of the gods, demigods and heroes, it is obvious that spiritual, mental and psychic as well as physical abilities came into play in the performances on the stadium or hippodrome and in determining the winners.
The gods and demigods exhibited more of spiritual, mental and psychic powers than the heroes.
The heroes, born of demigods and human beings, demonstrated more of physical prowess than the mental and spiritual aspects.
The players who performed at the various football stadia in Brazil were human beings. There were no gods and demigods among them.
Were there heroes?
This is a difficult question because it is not easy to determine whether the following super footballers were born of demigods and human beings: Lionel Messi, four times FIFA best player and winner of the golden ball in Brazil 2014; James Rodriguez, top scorer and goal king of Brazil World Cup; top runner of the games, German Thomas Mueller, who covered a distance of 83,957 meters in all; top ball saver, German Manuel Neuer, winner of the golden gloves; Cristiano Ronaldo, FIFA best player for 2013; Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior of Brazil and Arjen Robin of Netherlands.
Both parents of the world’s top footballers are human beings.
Is a player born of a psychic, wizard or witch and a hero?
Why did they stand tall above the average footballers in Brazil?
The answers lie in the convergence of spiritual, mental, psychic or psychological and physical abilities of each player.
It should be noted that all footballers play at the spiritual, mental, psychic or psychological and the physical planes of consciousness.
The coaches, in directing the footballers off and on the pitch, also bring their spiritual, mental, psychic and physical abilities to bear on the games. Some coaches like Sir Alex Ferguson, former Manchester United Coach; Jose Mourinho, now Chelsea coach, and Pep Guardiola of Bayern Munich, are believed to be magicians.
The ordinary human eye can see and appreciate the physical play but the spiritual, mental and psychic aspects are hidden and therefore not perceptible.
In our time, we need the services of an Olympian poet, such as Homer, the author of Iliad and Odysseys, to describe the exploits of players on the spiritual, mental and psychic planes.
The team that can outplay other teams at the various levels or planes of consciousness wins – form, class, climatic conditions, home support and so on – notwithstanding.
In sports and games, spiritual, mental, psychic/psychological or physical fitness is therefore an important determinant.
On Ghana Black Stars’ performance at the World Cup 2014 in Brazil, the team, coaches and others were not completely fit spiritually, mentally, psychically/psychologically and physically.
Coach Jose Mourinho saw it; he read into it and made an accurate prediction. He said the Black Stars would not go beyond the group stage.
In the 2006 and 2010 World Cup finals, the Black Stars performed better.
Are the facts that the coaches then were Europeans, better qualified and experienced – deciding factors in the Black Stars’ poor show?
Coach Kwesi Appiah successfully managed the Black Stars to qualify for World Cup 2014.
He is yet to acquire a UEFA licence and gather a lot of experience that can boost his chances at international football matches such as the World Cup.
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