Nikita Simonyan "Is football only a game?" ('Футбол - только ли игра?'). You read this book with interest and with a positive, good mood (which is not often the case).
It seems that with sadness Nikita Simonyan recalls the own musical abilities.
The author has the obvious literary abilities.
But life turned so that football became his main occupation.
Personal persistence and many circumstances led Nikita Simonyan into big football.
He is a player who has scored many important goals on football fields, as well as a coach and a civil servant in the sphere of sports. He achieved high results everywhere.
Well-known coaches (in various sports) periodically write books.
It would be interesting to compare different books by different trainers ... but time ... time ...
The book itself, written by Nikita Simonyan, can probably be called a memoirs, set out in the form of a kind of autobiography.
More or less sequentially, period after period, in relative chronological order, the faces, the life situations, the author's thoughts and emotions pass before the reader ...
The huge social institution of football - this activity, which is approved and encouraged by the state, - part of an even larger public institution of "a big sports" - appears as a whole world inhabited by all sorts of people who live and communicate according to certain rules.
"Sportsman", "sports fan" - these are roles that are approved (get a positive rating) from side of a society.
"Sports officials of the international level" are people from a special world.
If in conversation other people mention you as a "sports fan", then this is more a plus than a minus.
There are usually 11 players in a football team. There are usually 11 people on a football team. There are stadiums with a maximum (record) number of seats for spectators. However, since the advent of sports coffee bars with TV-receivers the number of participants of the football world is theoretically endless. Anyone can enter this world of their own free will and receive many positive emotions. An entrance ticket is not always needed. It is enough just to show your personal desire.
If you is able to tell something new about the footballer Pele, then you is an attractive, a good companion. It is even better if you personally saw Maradona, even if from afar, and you is able to tell about what you saw in detail.
It is very tempting to take this read book as an excuse to philosophize on the topic of football, to invent a some generalizations.
Yes, all the pages of the book written by Nikita Simonyan, are already read, after reading this book the mood is good, I want to philosophize, but I prefer to stop this impulse.
To say something positive, approving one? It is unlikely that it will be possible to add something that has not already been said. And changes in lifestyle dictate new forms of existence. In the old peasant numerous (large) families, all their members were extremely busy - each with his own duties. And if now there are no such families, and the parents are busy at work - is it not right for the child (children) to enroll in the sports section? Sport has existed for centuries, millennia. Sport - you is a peace! And what can you object to this? You is ready to remember the Moscow (1980) and Sochi (2014) Olympics, events before, during and after?
"The left, left, left coast of Don, beaches, seagulls, a nice places nearby of a little river bay..." [a words of a popular song]
Now in the area of the city of Rostov-on-Don on the left bank of the Don there is a huge football stadium. It seems this building require enormous maintenance costs ...
Sports grounds in yards, sometimes next to busy highways - grounds fenced with metal nets ...
To say something that expresses a doubt?
How do professional, near-professional, 'big' sports and a health correlate?
A correct lifestyle, the simplest (most natural) forms of regular physical activity, attempts to preserve urban forests and groves, increase their area, prevent them from turning into degenerated quasi-parks without natural flora and fauna, into cheap land plots - construction sites - all this happens in our modern world, all this takes place. The usefulness of all of the above will not be denied by sports commentators and sports journalists. But are these concepts, these activities, these attempts interesting for millions of fans (enthusiastically discussing the game and activities of Platini and Juventus)?
A funding for football is best not to touch, not to discuss. Pendulums of discussion often swing between the points "there is not enough money, and there is no sources of means" and "football achievements are the pride of the country."
Nikita Simonyan wrote a good book with a lot of interesting stories, memories and thoughts.
Did it make sense to write something about her, about this book? Or was it enough to read and take into account?
I have come to believe that it is enough only to read ...
However, the turbulent events with the creation of the European Super League confirmed the legitimacy of the question "Is football only a game?"
The sports theme, of course, does not end there. Perhaps interesting books will be written by modern outstanding athletes ...
April 17, 2021 - April 21, 2021
Translation from Russian into English: April 21, 2021 10:36.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Футбол - только ли игра? Заметка'.