“没有所谓的新想法。这是不可能的。我们只是简单地把很多旧的想法放进一个精神万花筒里。正如马克·吐温在他的作品《马克·吐温自己的自传:北美评论中的章节》中所述，“我们给它们一个转折，它们会做出新的、奇怪的组合。”我们不断地转动，无限地制造新的组合，但它们是一直在使用的相同的旧彩色玻璃碎片。”足球是世界上最受欢迎的运动，与其他运动相比，它看起来很新颖。然而，足球的结构仍然是旧观念的结合或发展。在我看来，足球的“旧彩色玻璃碎片”就是战争。
战争在牛津词典中被定义为“两个或两个以上的国家或群体在一段时间内互相争斗的情况”。历史学家认为，历史上有记载的第一次战争发生在公元前2700年的美索不达米亚，苏美尔(Sumer)和埃兰(Elam)的军队之间。大约1000年后，中国出现了世界上最早的足球运动——蹴鞠，在一段时间内由两支球队进行比赛。有趣的是，在古代中国，蹴鞠是一种帮助士兵在战争中更顽强作战的游戏。
此外，战争涉及打架和暴力，成千上万的人经常死于一场战斗或战争，这总是造成破坏的地区战争发生。虽然足球不像战争那样暴力和冷酷，但足球的先驱者的一个重要特征是，比赛涉及大量的人，并在城镇的大范围内举行。这些疯狂的游戏会对城镇造成破坏，有时会导致参与者死亡。早期足球比赛的结果也类似于战争的结果。
随着足球在历史上的发展，它仍然保留了一些战争的特征，比如方法。在足球比赛中，球员与对方球队进行身体接触，球队之间直接竞争，就像军队在战争中面对面作战。此外，教练员会尝试换人，发明新的战术来击败其他球队，将军们也会做出改变，形成新的战斗风格。有时，一个小的改变可以成为整个足球比赛的转折点，这也发生在战争中。
其次，专家认为公元前2700年的战争很可能是社会开始争夺有限资源的结果。同样，正如德国传奇人物加里·莱因克尔所说:“足球是一项简单的运动;22个人追逐一个球90分钟”。场上的球是玩家争夺的有限资源。此外，联赛和杯赛的奖杯也是有限的，不是每个人都能赢得奖杯，这使得他们成为足球世界中球员争夺的有限资源。所以，与战争相比，足球比赛的目标并不新鲜。
正如马克·吐温所说，在精神的万花筒里，足球，运动，被转变了，有了一些新的特点，但它仍然只是旧思想，战争的不同组合。从早期的结果、方法和目标来看，足球仍然是和平时代的战争，而不是一个真正的新思想。
然而，足球的一个核心与战争完全不同，那就是温度。战争总是残酷的。因此，人们想要预防它们。相反，人们通过足球来表达他们的善良、爱和精神。沙佩科恩斯是足球向我们展示其韧性的一个很好的例子。2016年11月28日，巴西沙佩科恩斯足球队(Chapecoense)在哥伦比亚遭遇飞机失事，队员大部分遇难，球队四分五裂，但沙佩科恩斯从队员们遭受的极度痛苦中获得了极大的力量。守门员达尼洛从事故中被救了出来，但后来在医院去世。在他生命的最后一刻，他仍然想着他的队友，想和他们在一个团队里。就像他说的，“我的朋友们在天堂等着我，他们需要一个守门员。”丹尼洛的母亲在失去儿子后流下了眼泪，她说:“我想给沙佩科恩斯的孩子们一个拥抱。他们遭受了许多不幸。周围的人都在安慰我，但我愿意帮助俱乐部度过这一切。”幸运的是，团队做到了。他们拒绝了留在意甲三年不降级的建议，相反，他们坚持不懈地处理了极端的情况。球迷们没有离开球队，他们仍然来比赛，为他们的球员欢呼。球员们也保持着强硬。队长艾伦是这次事故的幸存者之一，他甚至在回来后进了一个球，他说这是给他在天堂的队友们的礼物。来自外部的支持也帮助了团队。运动员和官员们在赛前跪下默哀，以表达他们对坠机遇难者的怀念，以及对遇难者家属的祝福。南美足协(South American Football Confederation)还将2016年南美杯(Copa Sudamericana)的冠军授予了沙佩科恩斯(Chapecoense)，这是他们未能参加的决赛。今天，沙佩科恩斯仍然在巴西甲级联赛中踢球。
此外，足球不仅可以作为一种表达爱和精神的方式，也可以用来阻止它的“旧的彩色玻璃”。圣诞休战是在1914年圣诞节前后，第一次世界大战发生5个月后，在第一次世界大战的西线，一系列广泛的非官方停火协议。德国和英国士兵点亮圣诞树，交换食物，在无人地带踢足球。在比利时的伊普尔小镇，士兵们用他们的鹤嘴锄作为球门，踢着锡罐。在西线，这样的足球比赛每天都在进行。袋子、罐子、t恤、吸管和空盒子都被用作足球。每次游戏都要持续一个小时，直到士兵们玩累了为止。士兵们通过这些足球比赛分享他们的感受，暂时忘记战争，这是一战中为数不多的美好时刻之一。
总之，足球继承了战争的许多特征，早期的结果，方法，目的等，所以足球不是一个原创的新想法。足球在很多方面与战争相似，但足球的核心，它的温度，使它成为足球，世界上最受欢迎的运动，而不是一场战争。这就是为什么我们喜欢足球。
2021.7.12晚 朱子桐
Soccer, War?
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.”, as Mark Twain stated in his work, Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review, “We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”. Soccer, or Association Football, is the world’s most popular sport, which looked quite original and new compared to other sports. However, the structure of soccer is still a combination or a development of old ideas. The “old pieces of colored glass” for soccer is, in my opinion, war.
War is defined as “a situation in which two or more countries or groups of people fight against each other over a period of time” in the Oxford dictionary. It could be explained in short as a conflict carried on by force of arms between groups. Historians believe the first war in recorded history took place in Mesopotamia in 2,700 B.C. between the forces of Sumer and Elam, which seemed irrelevant with the first known example of a team game involving a ball occurring in old Mesoamerican cultures 3000 years ago. However, early soccer games are just like a different version of war. In some ritual occasions in old Mesoamerican cultures, the captain of the losing team would be sacrificed to the gods. In the same way, in a war, the winning group also gets what the losing group has.
Besides, wars are involved with fights and violence, thousands of people often die in a battle or war, which always cause damage to the area where the war happened. Though soccer’s not as violent and cold as war, an important feature of the forerunners to soccer was that the games involved plenty of people and took place over large areas in towns. The rampage of these games would cause damage to the town and sometimes death to the participants. The results of early soccer games are also similar to the result of a war.
As soccer evolves throughout history, it still maintains some traits of war, such as the method. Players in a soccer match play against the other team with physical contact, and the teams compete against each other directly, which is like the army fighting in the war face to face. Besides, coaches try to make substitutions and invent new tactics to defeat the other teams, while Generals make changes and form new styles of fighting as well. Sometimes, one small change could become the turning point of the whole soccer game, which happened in wars too.
Secondly, experts believe the war in 2700 B.C. was likely the result of societies beginning to compete for limited resources. Similarly, as German legend Gary Lineker said, “Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes”. The ball on the field is the limited resource players compete for. Furthermore, the trophies in Leagues and Cups are limited as well, not everyone could win the trophies, which made them the limited resources players compete for in the soccer world. So the goal of a soccer match is not new, compared to war.
As Mark Twain said, with the mental kaleidoscope, soccer, the sport, got turned and had some new traits, but it’s still just a different combination of the old idea, war. With its result in the early years, method, and its goal, soccer is still the war in peaceful eras, not such a thing as a truly new idea.
Nevertheless, one core of soccer is totally different from war, its temperature. Wars are always cold-blooded. As a result, people want to prevent them. Oppositely, people express their kindness, love, and spirit through soccer. Chapecoense is a great example of how soccer showed us its toughness. On 28 November 2016, Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense had been torn apart by the plane crash in Colombia, which killed most of its players, but Chapecoense gained extreme power from the extreme pain they suffered. Goalkeeper Danilo was rescued from the crash, but died in the hospital later. At his last minute of life, he was still thinking about his teammates, and wanted to be on a team with them. As he said, “My friends are waiting for me in heaven, they need a goalkeeper there.” Danilo’s mom, who held tears after she lost her son, said, “I wanted to give a hug to Chapecoense’s kids. They suffered a lot of misfortunes. People around are comforting me, but I would like to help the club get through all of this more.” Fortunately, the team did. They rejected the suggestion that they could stay in Serie A for three years without getting relegated, instead, they dealt with the extreme conditions with their own strength. The fans did not leave the team, they still came to games and cheered for their players. The players remained tough as well. Team captain, Alan, one of the survivors from the crash, even scored a goal after he came back, which he said was a gift for his teammates in heaven. Support from the outside also helped the team. Players and officials knelt down and kept silent before games to show their remembrance of the players lost in the crash, and their wishes to the players’ families. South American Football Confederation also awarded the title of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana, the final they didn’t get to play, to Chapecoense. Today, Chapecoense still fights in the Brazilian Serie A league.
Furthermore, soccer could not only be used as a way to express love and spirit, but also a way to stop its “old pieces of colored glass”. The Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914, five months after World War I occurred. German and British soldiers lightened Christmas Trees, traded foods, and played soccer in No man's land. At ypres, a small town in Belgium, soldiers used their pickaxes as the soccer goal, and kicked the tin cans. In fact, soccer matches like this happened everyday along the Western Front. Bags, cans, T-shirts, straws, and empty boxes were all used as soccer balls. Each game always lasted an hour, until the soldiers got tired. Soldiers share their feelings and temporarily forget about the war through these soccer games, which was one of the few beautiful moments in World War I.
In conclusion, soccer inherited many traits from war, early results, methods, purposes, etc., so soccer is not an original new idea. Soccer is similar to war in many ways, but the core of soccer, its temperature, made it soccer, the most popular sport in the world, not a war. This is why we love soccer.
July，12，2021 Zitong Zhu
