Tallinn, the Football World Cup and Patriotism

Hi, I've just returned from Finland and Estonia, yes I've had an insane amount of traveling of late!. You see, my company is expanding in Estonia, we have opened an office in Tallinn and have hired many people there and I spent the weekend there getting to know my new team better. Wages are lower in Tallinn and you can hire 2 or 3 people for everyone one person you hire in London: but it goes beyond that, people in Tallinn are a lot more hungry for opportunities with it being a much smaller city. The population of Tallinn is about 450,000 and the total population in all of Estonia is just 1.3 million. The brightest young people in my industry prefer to work for the big banks, whilst in Estonia, many of these big banks don't even have a presence there and so there are far fewer opportunities for young people who are extremely highly educated and speak English (amongst other languages) fluently. Thus we have managed to get a highly motivated team who are working extremely hard, we are moving most of our back office operations to Tallinn whilst keeping the sales staff in London. And I know what you're going to ask: I am a salesman, I am on the sales team, not the technical side so my job is not going to Estonia. And of course, you can always view all my photos and videos from this trip on Instagram. 

There were two things that made me feel a bit uncomfortable in Tallinn - whilst I got along well with my new Estonian colleagues, at the back of my mind, I did wonder what they thought about the London team? Was there resentment about the fact that we're generally better paid in London? I don't know - the topic of money never came up, everybody seemed extremely happy doing what they were doing and the team seemed to work well together. And the second thing that made me feel somewhat uneasy was the football - oh I just don't get it, they we were, in this beautiful city of Tallinn and all the guys wanted to do was to drink beer and watch football instead of exploring Tallinn. Fortunately, I managed to find two other colleagues who felt the same way and we had a brilliant time exploring Tallinn together. Even in Tallinn, there were various groups of football supporters and that's the part I just don't understand: after all, these guys are just supporting a football team, they have no input into the process so even if their team does win, they are merely celebrating the fact that they got an outcome they wanted. Is that any excuse to derive any joy or pride? Personally, I don't think so, but the football fans don't seem to care and there were loads of them everywhere I went on this trip. Can football with the right amount of alcohol genuinely make people bond? Am I way too cynical about the power of football?

Don't get me wrong, I am not cynical about sports per se - I am a former national champion gymnast who still trains a few times a week and I often post videos from my gymnastics training on Instagram. On one hand, yeah it's all about my ego - you may not be in the gym with me, but through the power of Instagram, I get to share it all with you no matter where you are in the world. For me, sports is something you participate in, it shouldn't be just a spectator sport. How many of these football fans actually played a game of football in the last 12 months? I suspect most of them haven't even actually touched a football in many years. Maybe you're just not that keen on sports - even that's fine by me, but find something that you do enjoy, that you do like and get passionate about doing it. After all, watching football on the TV is a far cry from actually playing football and especially during the Football World Cup season, when I hear people say things like, 'I love football' - I do hold them to account and verify if they have actually played football in the last 12 months, if not, then I correct them and tell them that they love watching football matches on TV (whilst eating pizza and drinking a lot of beer), that's not the same as loving football because people who are truly passionate about football actually do play the game.

You see, most of the time at work, I'm pretty much left on my own - I know what I have to do and I deliver, I often work from home and my boss really doesn't care whether I go into the office or not as long as I get the work done. Thus the bonding weekend was a little bit tense for me because whilst I knew everyone there, I didn't quite know just how much they earned. Take the team from our Estonian office for example, some are more senior than others and I knew some were paid more than others - but I didn't have the details and I don't think I will ever find out. It wasn't the kind of information that was crucial, I didn't need to know but at some level, I just wanted to find out where everyone stood relative to each other, if there was going to be a pecking order based on how much each individual earned in the company because let's face it, some of us are paid a lot whilst others not very much. Just because you work for a successful company doesn't mean that you are earning a lot of money - heck, you could probably go to a big investment bank like Merrill Lynch or JP Morgan and find secretaries or janitors who are struggling to make ends meet. The fact that they are technically speaking working at a famous investment bank doesn't translate to them making any more money than their peers. Simply attaching yourself to a successful organisation doesn't necessary mean you're successful, especially if you're the one cleaning the toilets or the secretary stuck in a basement doing the paperwork at JP Morgan

This is primarily the reason why I prefer to stand out as an individual rather than try to identify myself with any group in society just to derive some kind of sense of belonging. But that makes me strange, weird and highly unusual because humans have always tried to form communities with whom they share some kind of connection with so they will be able to say, "I belong to this tribe." And tribes come in various shapes and forms, we make belonging to such a tribe a fun experience. Think about what Christians do at church on Sundays: they don't just worship together, they have amazing choirs, they have various social activities to make fellowship interesting and fun, there is often some food and drink and the social aspect of going to church becomes an important feature of the routine of being a Christian. If this was simply a matter of religious devotion, the Christian can go to a church on a weekday and pray in solitude without any of the 'Sunday service' experience. Us humans have created huge, colourful festivals to celebrate a sense of belonging, to bring people together and another example of that would be the National Day celebrations in various countries designed to foster a sense of patriotism. We have been doing this as humans for centuries - so for individuals to somehow identify themselves with their national football team is simply a logical extension of this mentality, but I do have a problem with it.

If you are truly patriotic, then why focus on the outcome of a football match, played by a very small group of highly paid professionals? Why not focus on something from your country's history rather than pin all your hopes on an unlikely outcome like your country winning the World Cup? After all, only one team can win the World Cup, so what happens to all the others who have supported a team that didn't win then? Where does this leave them in terms of their patriotism after their team suffers a humiliating defeat? Riots broke out in Buenos Aires when disappointed fans ran amok in the streets, vandalizing everything from cars to shops, clashing with riot police after Argentina lost to Germany in the finals. What kind of patriotism is this, where your pride in your country is dependent on the outcome of a football match which you have no control over? That's just so warped. That's why I am probably the least patriotic person you will meet, I do not believe in handing over my self-esteem to a third party whom I have no control over. I prefer to derive my pride entirely from the things that I have achieved personally - now some people call me an egoist by that token, others find my lack of patriotism shocking. But look at how the Argentinian fans caused so much trouble in their own capital city after their defeat and tell me this is a healthy form of patriotism. Even the Argentinians were embarrassed by what happened.

But then again, it is obvious why a lot of people indulge in this kind of 'patriotism' which is often associated with football. Imagine if you are at the bottom of the food chain, you're not very educated, you have no skills to get you a highly paid job and so you're struggling on, barely able to make ends meet - there's little to bring you joy each morning when you wake up, you worry if you are going to be able to pay all your bills and there's a long day of very hard and unpleasant work ahead of you. Yup, for people like that, life can be pretty miserable and they desperately need something to distract them from the misery that is their everyday lives. And for them, football offers some kind of escapism: after all, if their team wins, they get to celebrate as if something incredible has happened to them personally, to bring them such great joy even if they did just watch the game on TV far away from where the match actually took place. I'm not a monster, I get it: football can be a lot of fun to watch when two excellent teams play. But what if your team loses, then are you going to add the agony of defeat to all your other woes? If you're after escapism, why not just watch a romantic comedy with a happy ending? That way, you are distracted from your problems and you know that all the problems will be resolved and the characters all live happily ever after at the end of that movie, you get to walk away from that movie with a big smile on your face and a lovely warm glow in your heart - quite unlike the football fans in Buenos Aires after their team lost.

My theory would have been completely valid except of course, loads of people who are professionals, who have highly successful careers also follow and enjoy the World Cup in Russia - they have plenty of successes they can be proud of but they still enjoy football.What's the difference then? Let me tell you about a lawyer friend of mine - this guy is super rich, highly successful and he took great interest in the Japan vs Colombia match. So I think okay, this man is English, he probably is simply appreciating the finer aspects of the sport because he can't possibly have any affiliation with Japan or Colombia: why should he care who wins then? Surely this is the very spirit of true sportsmanship, someone who loves the sport for what it is rather than trying to personally associate himself with the team that is playing, right? Well, in an ideal world, sure - but this being my world, you know this is never going to be the case. Turns out that this lawyer had bet quite a lot of money on Japan beating Colombia against the odds and sure enough, Japan came through and he took a lot of pride in not Japan's victory per se, but his ability as a gambler, as a football pundit to not just pick the correct winner but to also have the balls to bet a lot of his money on it. So much for him simply appreciating football for what it is, he had somehow found a way to make the Japan vs Colombia game about him rather than, well, the teams that played that match. But to be fair, at least he did win quite a lot of money in the process and there was some skill involved in that.

So there you go, that's it from me on this issue, what do you think? Do you actually know how much your colleagues earn or is that an issue that you have never even thought about? Are your friends interested in the football now and how do they pick the team they are supporting? What do you think about the unholy mix of patriotism and football, given the way that often ends in tears when your team doesn't win? And can you explain the psychology behind the way football fans can derive so much joy from supporting a team? Cos I just don't get it. I'll celebrate and be happy when I make a huge sale and can run round the office high-fiving everyone - that's what makes me happy, when I can point to something and say, "I pulled that off, I claim credit for that, that was all my effort, who's your daddy?" But how can anyone celebrate when they have merely witnessed a goal being scored on TV? Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.