What is it about football that has half our planet reeling? It is no more than a spherical rubber ball, an inanimate object that defies logic — “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Yet, it transcends borders, languages, and cultures, creating a global community like no other passion.
It acts as a universal language that brings billions together to celebrate shared human emotions, national pride, and the sheer joy of living, or a shared global heartbreak.
It seems inconceivable that despite a world ravaged by death and destruction, humans find in football 90 minutes of pure escape in an effort to create a temporary truce to heal a fractured world.
What exactly is the magic and the mystery of football, described as a “secular religion” rather than a great sport? The FIFA World Cup of 2026 has taken over the planet right now and the tension is absolutely unreal. Its followers overpassed 5.6 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach over six billion by the final of the FIFA World Cup on 19 July. This represents roughly 75 per cent of the entire population of our planet. It is a mind-blowing global phenomenon that we are anxious to comprehend.
Most experts and observers point to its simplicity and accessibility — a ball and an open space is all that is required to play, but this is just the entry point. Its true hypnosis relies on “a powerful mix of scarcity, narrative projection, and deep neurological triggers”. Here is the deeper unspoken core of why football holds half the planet captive.
The physical act of watching football triggers unique responses in the human brain. When you watch a player execute a breathtaking pass, your mirror neurons act as if you are performing, offering a subconscious sense of personal mastery.
Football mimics the neurological structure of gambling. The unpredictability of the game (such as a last-minute winner) releases a rush of dopamine, giving fans the same neurological reward as gambling.
While other sports share pieces of the puzzle, football is the only game that combines all the psychological triggers into a simple flawless formula that makes it unique.
Consider the high drama of the clock. It never stops running, so your focus never stops. Scoring is so rare that one single goal induces a massive primitive surge of adrenaline and shared euphoria. Unlike other sports fragmented by constant whistle stops, time-outs or commercial breaks, your eyes follow the ball, allowing you to stay immersed in the game. If you want drama, football is drama. One team can be dominating for 89 minutes and lose the game in the next few seconds. The exact end of the match is a mystery.
One major factor that is hardly mentioned is the most significant psychological differentiation: no hands. Humans normally use tools to express fine motor skills through their hands. Using your hands is instinctual. Forcing elite athletes to manipulate a moving object with their feet introduces a high level of difficulty that defies natural human instincts.
Controlling a ball with your feet is inherently unnatural, impossible or magical. When a player does it with absolute grace, it triggers a profound sense of awe in the viewer. No wonder you get a dopamine rush.
While billions keep their eyes on the ball, few remember the birthplace of the first ball. Early forms of kicking the ball in ancient Egypt, the birthplace of all civilisations, appear in reliefs on walls of temples in Luxor and Minya. FIFA noted that the oldest surviving balls in human history originated in ancient Egypt, dating back 4,000 years. The first balls were carefully stitched spherical balls made of papyrus, palm fibers, and animal skins.
Thousands of years ago archaeological evidence confirms that Egyptians engaged in athletic games that involved kicking, catching, and striking spherical objects.
In the fifth century BC, Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, wrote about witnessing young men playing an energetic game that involved kicking a ball made of goatskin and straw.
Remember the name of Egypt’s team, The Pharoahs, a given to FIFA honouring the country’s ancient heritage.
The only other venue of the last century that speaks one universal language is the art of film. Football and cinematography both shaped a global culture of the 20th century. While the 20th century saw incredible leaps in science and technology, filmmaking and football arguably represent the century’s greatest leaps in cultural connection.
Both were created at the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries. Cinema evolved from a technological novelty into ultimate modern story-telling medium. Its art form transcends language, allowing billions to share emotional, visual, and narrative experiences. It captures human history, reflects societal values and pushes the boundaries of human imagination.
While kicking a ball is an ancient human impulse, the revival of football in the late 19th century created an unprecedented global phenomenon. It unites a shared global rhythm every four years in the World Cup.
We call them discoveries, because fundamentally they unlocked new ways for humanity to connect. If cinema is the art of seeing, football is the art of doing.
Football creates instant understanding. Cinema is pure magic. Together they escape to a moment of rapture. Entire nations stop to watch them and mend our broken world.
“Football is the ballet of the masses.”
Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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